Constructing the Image of Muhammad in Europe 9783110300864, 9783110300826

Citation preview

Constructing the Image of Muhammad in Europe

Constructing the Image of Muhammad in Europe

Edited by Avinoam Shalem Co-authored by Michelina Di Cesare, Heather Coffey, and Alberto Saviello

ISBN 978-3-11-030082-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-030086-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Photo on the title page: Jean François Janinet, Rôle de Mahomet. Aux mânes de Le Kain, Costumes et annales des grands théâtres, ed. Jean Charles Leracher de Charnois, 4 vol. (Paris: Janinet, 1786–1789). Typesetter: Werksatz Schmidt & Schulz GmbH, Gräfenhainichen Printer: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Preface and Acknowledgements This book is representative of a larger interdisciplinary research project entitled Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions, which explores the multiple ways in which the Prophet Muhammad has been described and depicted in European traditions, from the medieval era until the early modern period. The volume is co-authored by three scholars and members of the research group based in Florence: Dr. Michelina Di Cesare, who is preparing a corpus of medieval Latin textual sources on Muhammad; Heather Coffey, a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, who is preparing a corpus of medieval visual representations of the Prophet in surviving European manuscripts and monumental paintings; and Alberto Saviello, who has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Munich concerning the depictions of Muhammad in European printed books. The volume is edited by Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem (Munich University and Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Max Planck Institut), who is the director of the research project. We wish to extend our sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Christiane J. Gruber (Ann Arbor University, Michigan), who energetically conceptualized and organized with Avinoam Shalem a three-day conference on the particular theme of the Prophet’s image in both Islamic and European traditions in July 2009, at the KHI in Florence, and was also of tremendous help to us in the very early stages of conceptualizing this volume. The aims of this research project are manifold: to call much needed scholarly attention to this rather neglected field of research; to promote scholars to investigate this particular subject by providing fellowships that allowed them the freedom to concentrate on the pursuit of this subject; to initiate academic interest and excitement by creating an open forum for debate through the organization of pertinent conferences and workshops; to collect an array of visual and textual material that could serve as a foundation for future scholarly inquiry; and finally, to make this research universally accessible through immediate publication.¹

1 For more information on this project and its publications see mainly: Avionam Shalem et al., “Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions,” in Forschungsbericht Herbst 2006 – Winter 2008: Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz / Max-Planck-Institut, ed. Alessandro Nova and Gerhard Wolf (Florence: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, 2009), 79–84, http://www.khi.fi.it/pdf/forschungsbericht_2008.pdf; and the website of the KHI: http://www.khi.fi.it/forschung/projekte/projekte/projekt21/index.html. Several articles which were published recently by members of this research group are either the result of this project or were instigated by this research. See Christiane J. Gruber, “Between Logos (Kalima) and Light (Nur): Representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Painting,” Muqarnas 26 (2009), 229–262; Michelina Di Cesare, “Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions. An Interdisciplinary Project”, Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo 7, no. 2 (2010), 555–560; Alberto Saviello, “El Gran Turco als ‘maskierter Tyrann’. Ein Topos druckgraphischer

VI 

 Preface and Acknowledgements

Of course, this book would not have been published without the help of multiple individuals and institutions. We would like to thank the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz for providing us with the financial support and the needed infrastructure for running this project in the Institute. We would like to express our gratitude to both directors of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolf and Prof. Dr. Alessandro Nova. Special thanks to Prof. Wolf, who along the way always encouraged, helped and advised all members of this research project. Throughout these years of working on this project, many individuals, colleagues and friends helped us. We would also like to thank: Hannah Baader, Sussan Babaie, Gill Cannell, Finbarr Barry Flood, Maria Vittoria Fontana, Maja Häderli, Annette Hoffmann, Renata Holod, Ulrike Ilg, Christine Klöckner, Eckhard Leuschner, Astrid Müller, Suzanne Paul, Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli, Marco Spallanzani, Charlotte Villiers, and Ittai Weinryb. We are grateful to Walter de Gruyter academic publishing house for its immediate interest in and acceptance of our book proposal, and, especially, to Dr. Katja Richter, the arts editor, who made this book a project of her own. We would like to thank Heather Coffey for her careful editorial work on the first draft of this book and also our copy-editor Linda Needham, who had the difficult task of editing, revising and polishing our drafts.

Darstellungen osmanischer Sultane im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert,” in Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World, 217–230; Avinoam Shalem, “Verbildlichung Allahs: Für eine andere Bildtheorie,” in Das Bild Gottes in Judentum, Christentum und Islam: vom Alten Testament bis zum Karikaturenstreit, ed. Eckhard Leuschner and Mark R. Hesslinger (Petersberg: Michael Imfof, 2009), 81–92; a corpus of medieval sources by Michelina Di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011); Alberto Saviello and Avinoam Shalem, “Der Betrachter im Bild: Visualisierungen des Islam im europäischen Buchdruck,” in Götterbilder und Götzendiener in der Frühen Neuzeit: Europas Blick auf fremde Religionen, ed. Maria Effinger, Cornelia Logemann and Ulrich Pfisterer (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2012), 69–79, and a doctoral dissertation entitled “Images of the Prophet Muhammad in the Late Medieval West: From Joachim of Fiore to Dante Alighieri,” completed by Heather Coffey at Indiana University in 2012. Other publications that are in preparation or in press at present are also the result of this project. These are: the proceeding of the above-mentioned conference, The Image of the Prophet between Ideal and Ideology: A Scholarly Investigation, ed. Christiane J. Gruber and Avinoam Shalem; Michelina Di Cesare, “Pietro il Venerabile, Ka‘b al-Ahbar e il Signum Ionae: per una nuova interpretazione del ‘ritratto’ di Muhammad nel Corpus Cluniacense,” in Per Gabriella. Studi in ricordo di Gabriella Braga, ed. Marco Palma and Cinzia Vismara (Cassino: Università degli Studi di Cassino, 2013). A book publication of Muhammad’s depictions in printed Western European Qur’an translations and biographies of the Prophet (1500–1900) is in preparation by Alberto Saviello.

Note on Transliteration The spelling of foreign words and terms and the use of transliterated characters follow the system used in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (or that of the International Journal of Middle East Studies) with the following modifications: foreign words that have entered the English language or have a generally recognised English form are Anglicized. Thus, j replaces the letter sound dj and q replaces the letter sound k. Since the papers in this volume are authored by scholars representing a wide range of disciplines and fields of research, the use of transliterated characters is restricted only to those specific words and terms chosen by the contributors to be transliterated.

Contents Preface and Acknowledgements – V Introduction – 1 Avinoam Shalem The Prophet in the Book: Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture – 9 Michelina Di Cesare Encountering the Body of Muhammad: Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives, the Shaqq al-Sadr, and the Divina Commedia in the Age before Print – 33 Heather Coffey Muhammad’s Multiple Faces: Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe – 87 Alberto Saviello Conclusion – 143 Avinoam Shalem Selected Bibliography – 151 Picture Credits – 155 Index of Proper Names, Terms, and Places – 157

Introduction Avinoam Shalem In the aftermath of protests erupting throughout the Muslim world soon after the publication of twelve caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005, and the subsequent reprint of these cartoons in the Danish newspaper Politiken on May 28, 2006, many questions were raised concerning the role and status of images in Islam.¹ Several art historians and historians were particularly vocal in this debate in an attempt to explain the multiple factors sustaining the strong, and sometimes violent, reactions to these images throughout the Muslim world. These scholars almost universally based their arguments on notions of residual iconoclasm and the apparent lack of figural aesthetics in Islamic traditions. This Euro-American tendency of presenting Islamic cultures as a homogeneous entity, and, as bearing an essentially “iconoclastic” character, appears to have intensified and aggravated the dispute. The tenor of these responses also fell into the Huntingtonian trap of defining Islam and the “West” as two opposing cultural vectors. Moreover, self-critical questions concerning the history of the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in Western traditions were not raised. The pursuit of such an investigation may shed new light on the diachronic reception of Islam in the West, the interactive processes of the transfer of knowledge, and the history of the conception and reception of the Prophet through his figural representations. A comprehensive research project addressing the visualisation of the Prophet Muhammad in Europe provides a more precise and balanced historical framework through which on-going misunderstandings, conflicts and clashes between the “East” and “West” can be examined properly. The varied and numerous surviving images of the Prophet in European archival materials function as visual documents illustrative of European society’s understanding of Islam and its Prophet, indicative of broad cultural transformations enacted through its continuous confrontation with the “Other”.² Moreover, the debate surrounding the decision of Yale University Press to exclude reproductions of the images of Muhammad from the recently published book by Jytte Klausen on the controversy of the Danish Cartoons³ again raises the question of the

1 A vast literature exists regarding the publication of these caricatures, its global impact, and the impassioned debates that ensued. However, the primary reference remains Jytte Klausen, The Cartoons that Shook the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 2 To read further on this topic, see mainly Minou Reeves, Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making (Reading, United Kingdom: Garnet Publishing, 2000) and Hartmut Bobzin, Muhammad (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2000). 3 See n. 1.

2 

 Introduction

Western approach towards the image of Muhammad and clearly demonstrates that any decision making in the West is dominated by the particular socio-political contexts in which the image of Muhammad might appear, be controlled, or, in Klausen’s case, prohibited. This book undertakes the monumental task of offering a comprehensive overview of the many categories of illustrations of Muhammad in circulation throughout European history. It aims to elucidate and explore how literary and visual descriptions of the Prophet Muhammad served multiple cultural, political and religious agendas, from the medieval period until the modern era. This contextual approach suggests that these images were constructed and manipulated following internal debates and according to the specific needs of the Christian world at particularly critical junctures for its relationship with Islam, from the earliest decades of the new religion in the seventh century to the onset of modernity in the nineteenth century. This is an introductory book to the history of the depictions of Muhammad in the West. However, it should be emphasized that although the images discussed in this book are organized chronologically, depictions of Muhammad in Europe did not follow a perfectly linear or sequential evolution. The volume also reflects a deliberate decision to omit discussion of the vast number of representations of the Prophet produced in the Islamic world and to avoid the usual prologue to this subject concerning iconoclasm. We hope through this approach to avoid both the usual apologetic character of the discussion of the image of Muhammad in the West and Western rationalizations for the making of his depiction. We are fully aware, however, of the merits of tackling both Western and Eastern histories of Muhammad’s visual representation.⁴ The first section of the volume addresses the medieval era and discusses the literary description and visual depiction of Muhammad in manuscripts dating from the eighth to the fifteenth century. Over one hundred Latin texts surviving from this period mention the Prophet. This impressive literary corpus encompasses a variety of texts: theological treatises, universal histories, Crusade chronicles, pilgrimage narratives, missionary reports, biographies of the Prophet in prose and verse, and translations of Arabic works. Previous scholarship has treated this material as one homogenous literary tradition, disregarding the particular characteristics and agendas of the range of literary genres represented. This section reveals how the written tradition is fundamentally composed of three categories of texts, each of which propagated a distinct

4 This contextual approach also characterized a conference organized by the research group on July 16–18, 2009, (titled Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions), and sponsored by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Max Planck Institut. The conference proceedings are currently being edited by Prof. Dr. Christiane J. Gruber, Professor of Islamic Art at Ann Arbor University in Michigan, and Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem for immediate publication.

Introduction 

 3

characterization of Muhammad. Artists applying their talents to the illustration and illumination of manuscripts, then translated these literary constructs into pictorial representations of the Prophet, enacting new iconography. A major shift in the iconography of Muhammad appears during the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The second section of this book addresses this particular era and explores images of Muhammad in manuscripts and wall paintings inspired by Dante’s Divina Commedia. These images are discussed in light of the continuous controversy concerning the possibility of direct or indirect influence of Islamic narratives of Muhammad’s celestial ascension (mi‘raj) on Dante’s text. The Prophet is condemned in canto XXVIII as a sower of schism and scandal, whose propagation of heretical doctrines while alive challenged the established authority of the Christian church. Muhammad’s eternal punishment for his heretical claims in Dante’s poem is to be eviscerated by a sword-wielding devil upon every doleful rotation around the perimeter of the ninth bolgia so that his entrails burst forth. Illustrated manuscripts depicting this scene follow the text literally, underscoring the lack of any single prescribed iconographic formula governing the depiction of the Prophet within medieval and Renaissance art. Monumental fresco paintings depicting Dante’s Inferno, such as the one ascribed to Buonamico Buffalmacco in the Camposanto in Pisa (c. 1315–35 CE), and a fifteenth-century fresco of hell in the Bolognini chapel of San Petronio in Bologna, relegate the evisceration to an adjacent figure, and augment the identification of Muhammad through an inscription. Analysis of a selection of images inspired by the Divina Commedia thus demonstrates how Dante’s text was the venue for the formation of a peculiarly distinct iconography of the Prophet in these centuries. Moreover, with the emergence of images of Muhammad in monumental frescoes, representations of the Prophet infiltrated public spaces for the first time, venturing beyond the confines of manuscript illustration. The third section of the volume focuses on engraved and etched images of Muhammad in printed materials produced between the sixteenth and the advent of the nineteenth century. The multitude of surviving printed books—largely biographies of the Prophet, translations of the Qur’an, illustrated historical works concerning the Ottoman Empire and related Turcica—attests not only to a sustained interest in the figure of Muhammad among European audiences, but also to the fact that such publications were the main agents of the transmission of knowledge about Islam. Close analysis of select images and their accompanying texts charts how the depiction of Muhammad underwent repeated metamorphoses over the centuries. Early printed woodcuts adhered to medieval strategies of rendering Muhammad as a precursor to, or manifestation of Antichrist, or through the alteration of Christian pictorial formulas of sanctity. Subsequent printed visualisations of the Prophet ranged from politicized portraits in the guise of an Ottoman sultan to sharply satirical, theatrical characterizations such as Harlequin. Scholars of the Enlightenment particularly struggled with dual impulses towards Muhammad’s depiction, aspiring both to a more historically-based, objective image of the Prophet, yet also perpetuating the public appetite for romantic, exotic details—the latter strategy amplifying under the rise of nineteenth-century Orientalism.

4 

 Introduction

A short conclusion is provided at the end of this volume, in which the different aspects discussed in the main body of the book are summarized and a few other queries, questions and potential avenues of future research presented. The reader will also find a master bibliography appended to the conclusion to facilitate further reading on the subject. However, before turning to the first chapter of the volume, which offers a discussion of the three paradigmatic literary types of Muhammad, the earliest known depiction of Muhammad in the West should be examined (fig. 1). Marginal as it appears, this is the earliest and arguably most famous rendering of the Prophet Muhammad to survive from medieval scriptoria.⁵ The image appears in the text De generatione Machumet et nurtritura eius (On the Birth and Nature of Muhammad), in what is possibly the original manuscript of the translations of the Qur’an, and in various supplementary texts concerning Islamic doctrine commissioned by Peter the Venerable between 1142–43 CE and completed by Peter of Toledo, Robert of Ketton and Herman of Dalmatia. Drawn in vermillion red, save the eyebrows and the pupils, which are inscribed in black, the sketch protrudes from the bottom right edge of the first text column gracing folio 11r. The inclusion of the defamatory doodle was clearly intentional: although the image is immersed in script, the rhythm and spacing of the surrounding words have been adjusted by the scribe to accommodate the pictorial addendum. Here the Prophet is depicted as a fantastical, composite creature, featuring a broad, bearded face fixed upon an aqueous, fish-like body. This pictorial strategy clearly derives from the hybrid or aggregate physiognomy of initials illuminated with facial detail, commonly found in early medieval and Romanesque manuscripts. In the Arsenal manuscript this inherent ambiguity of form is countered by the name Mahumeth, which has been inscribed in dark brown ink along the creature’s sloping spine and circled emphatically. The scribe may have found inspiration for the image in a passage from Peter the Venerable’s comprehensive reflection on the supposed perversity of Islamic doctrine, his Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum (Summary of All Heresies of the Saracens) or Summa brevis, which appears earlier in the manuscript on folio 2v. To further emphasize the inherent corruption of Islam, Peter evokes a passage from Horace’s Ars poetica (Art of Poetry): “Suppose a painter wished to couple a horse’s neck with a man’s head, and to lay feathers of every hue on limbs gathered here and there, so that a woman, lovely above, foully ended in an ugly fish below; would you restrain your laughter, my friends, if admitted to this private view?”⁶ The small image of Muham-

5 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 1162 (Toledan Collection), 2 cm (height), fol. 11r. This discussion of the earliest extant image of Muhammad was authored by Heather Coffey. 6 Peter’s summation of the famous passage reads “et sic undique monstruosus ut ille ait, ‘humano capiti, cervicem equinam et plumas avium copulat’”. See Walter B. Cahn, “The ‘Portrait’ of Muhammad in the Toledan Collection,” in Reading Medieval Images. The Art Historian and the Object,

Introduction 

Fig. 1: “Mahumeth,” De generatione Machumet et nurtritura eius, trans. Herman of Dalmatia, Drawing on vellum, c. 1142–43, 2 cm, MS. Arsenal 1162 (Toledan Collection), fol. 11r, Paris, Bibliothéque de l’Arsenal.

 5

6 

 Introduction

mad on folio 11r visually embodies this rhetoric. In an influential interpretation of the image, Cahn has demonstrated that the image also interacts closely with the very words that surround it to intensify its own defamatory properties. The image appears in the text of the De Generatione precisely when it recounts that, shortly after Muhammad’s birth, Ka‘b al-Ahbar travelled to Mecca.⁷ Muhammad’s prophet-hood is confirmed for Ka‘b when he sees that the infant bears a birthmark between his shoulders. The scribe’s positioning of the composite creature adjacent to the phrase “inter scapulas huius modi characterem,” sustains an implicit connection between the physical mark upon Muhammad described in the text and the oval shape of the visualization of the Prophet that protrudes into it. The appearance of the word “character” in the De Generatione is particularly significant due to its apocalyptic associations. While the word “signum” appears regularly throughout the Vulgate to indicate a mark or sign, the term is conspicuously absent from the Book of Revelation, where it is replaced by the word “character”. The latter term appears in contexts which specifically denote the mark of the Beast emblazoned on the right hand and foreheads of its followers (Rev 13:16–17; 14:9–11; 16:2; 19:20; and 20:4). The erudite, monastic audience for whom Peter the Venerable composed his tracts would have been sensitive to the correlation achieved by the specific terminology, which, “transform[ed] the mark from a sign of divine election into its opposite”.⁸ Recently, Di Cesare has suggested a different reading of this image.⁹ She sees in this drawing an iconographical allusion to the image of Jonah and the fish.¹⁰ She argues that the story of the salvation of Jonah after his captivity in the belly of the fish was an important signum of the messianic character of Christ. Christ’s proclamation of his resurrection from the dead after three days was equivalent to the exact duration of Jonah’s entrapment. The “fish monster” in the Cluniac corpus mocks the idea of Muhammad as a Messiah because, in contrast to Jonah, Muhammad is represented as caged in the body of a fish, unable to come out of its open mouth. The text directly adjacent to this piscine image recounts the story of Ka‘b’s recognition of the infant

ed. Elizabeth Sears and Thelma K. Thomas (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 52–53 and note 10, 59. 7 For Ka‘b al-Ahbar see “Ka‘b al-Ahbar,” Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1978), vol. 4, 316–317. 8 Cahn, “The ‘Portrait’ of Muhammad,” 55. 9 Di Cesare, “Pietro il Venerabile,” (in press). 10 Although the creature is often referred to as a whale in English renditions of the story of Jonah, it is definitvely described in the Vulgate as a “piscem grandem” (a big fish, Jon. 2:1), from the Greek “κητος μεγας” and Hebrew  “dag gadol”. Moreover, Matthew 12:40 reads “sicut enim fuit Ionas in ventre ceti tribus diebus et tribus noctib us…” (For just as Jonas was the belly of the sea monster for three days and three nights…); the genitive form of “cetus” here indicates an aqueous creature or monster. Thus, while the phrase “fish monster,” is somewhat humorous, it is nonetheless an accurate description of the creature as it is described in various biblical passages. Indeed, the modern English word “whale” derives from the Old English “hwæl,” corresponding to Old High German and Middle High German “wal”. 

Introduction 

 7

Muhammad as a prophet upon seeing the birthmark positioned between his shoulders. Therefore, this drawing subverts the idea of the Muhammad’s elect status, and comments critically on the story of Ka‘b, a converted Jew, who might have seen in Muhammad and the new Muslim religion indication of a messianic era. It should be noted that versions of this fantastical image of Muhammad appear in at least two later manuscripts, but they have both been moved to the outer edge of the left text column and somewhat simplified, diluting the polemical intent of the original.¹¹ Although this specific image of the “monster-Muhammad” is not paradigmatic of the whole corpus of his representations in the Latin West, this specific image, marginal as it is, remains the earliest extant depiction of the Prophet in Europe. Its importance lies in its historical context, namely as part of the production of the first Latin translation of the Qur’an in Toledo in Spain and its later copies in Cluny. Therefore, it suggests a possible route of transmission of knowledge of Muhammad in the West, in either visual or literary form. Moreover, it underscores a strong affinity between the written word and the visual image of Muhammad. It is true that in the majority of illustrations of the Prophet produced in the West, Muhammad ostentatiously appears in central positions in illustrated manuscripts and printed books. And yet, his marginal depiction in the Cluniac codex perhaps captures the annotator’s reaction to the canonical translated text on Muhammad and the Qur’an. In other words, the importance of this marginal image lies in its ability to provide information on the reception of the image of Muhammad in Europe in the twelfth century, beyond information contained in the written text itself. Furthermore, one may even speculate that the illustration functions not only as a commentary on the text, but perhaps even opens another interpretive frame for the making of the image of the Prophet Muhammad.

11 See Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 3668, fol. 12v, and Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 184 (Toledan Collection), fol. 20r (both represented in Cahn, “The ‘Portrait’ of Muhammad,” 56). For further discussion regarding the depiction of Muhammad in manuscript preserved in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, see Thérèse D’Alverny, “Deux traductions latines du Coran au moyen âge,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litéraire du moyen âge 16 (1947–1948), 69–131 and “Pierre la Vénérable et la légende de Mahomet,” À Cluny. Travaux du Congrès scientifique…, 9–11 juillet 1949 (Dijon, 1950), 161–170; Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1958, 102–104; Susanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 101, fig. 5.4; John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse. (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1994), vol. 1, 140, fig. 82; Cahn, “The ‘Portrait’ of Muhammad,” 51–60; Deborah Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 190, fig. 97; Matthew Dimmock, “A Human Head to the Neck of a Horse: Hybridity, Monstrosity and Early Christian Conceptions of Muhammad and Islam,” in The Religions of the Book: Christian Perceptions, 1400–1600, ed. Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield (Houndmills, Basingtoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 71.

The Prophet in the Book Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture* Michelina Di Cesare In 732 at Poitiers, the Frankish armies led by Charles Martel successfully halted the Islamic expansionist impetus throughout the Northwestern region of the Mediterranean. Very soon thereafter, in 740, the Byzantine armies led by the emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, halted at the Islamic advance throughout the Northeastern Mediterranean at Akroinon. Thus, from the mid-eighth century onwards, the orbis christianus began to re-define its borders and to confront a religious and cultural reality that had been silently gestating on the fringes of the Roman world and which, in a very short period of time, succeeded in menacing the Latin West and the heart of the Byzantine Empire. The unprecedented nature of the Muslim conquest, characterized by resisting linguistic and religious assimilation, was suddenly registered in written sources penned in the border territories, in which the military confrontation was dramatic and direct and which became a pervasive theme throughout Christian literary production. Christian authors, who were probably perplexed and astonished by the rapid emergence of the new Arab power, tried to understand and explain the military supremacy of the new conquerors, their origins, religious beliefs and their role within the history of salvation.¹ Moreover, fearing conversion to Islam, they tried to demonstrate the ethical superiority of the Christian religion. The figure of the Prophet of Islam subsequently became the nodal point of discussion concerning Islam in the West.² While Saracens, Arabs, and Ishmaelites were mentioned by classical authors and by the Church fathers,³ Muhammad was

* I would like to express my deep gratitude to Avinoam Shalem for many stimulating discussions concerning the iconographical issues addressed in this text; to my colleague Heather Coffey, who patiently and lovingly helped me to express my ideas in polished English; and to Maria Vittoria Fontana, who encouraged me to undertake research in the field of Christian-Muslim relations. 1 See John Victor Tolan, “Réactions chrétiennes aux conquêtes musulmanes. Étude comparée des auteurs chrétiens de Syrie et d’Espagne,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 44 (2001), 349–367; John Victor Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 1–20 and 40–104. 2 About the importance of the life of Muhammad in Christian-Muslim polemics, see Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960), esp. 67– 130; Tolan, Saracens; Alessandro D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto in Occidente, ed. Alessandro Borruso (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1994). 3 See David D. Grafton, “‘The Arabs’ in the Ecclesiastical Historians of the 4th/5th Centuries: Effects on Contemporary Christian-Muslim Relations,” HTS Theological Studies 64.1 (2008), 177–192, and

10 

 The Prophet in the Book

a new historical entity to be elaborated upon and inserted into the existing literary tradition. Versions of his biography proliferated and were repeatedly incorporated into texts belonging to different literary genres, and sometimes became the subject of works dedicated entirely to it. Upon examination, it is possible to identify more than one hundred Latin texts dating from the eighth to the fifteenth century that mention Muhammad,⁴ attesting to the fact that medieval authors and readers were highly familiar with the Prophet. The variety of these texts is equally impressive. They range from historiae universales to doctrinal treatises with apologetic and polemical purposes; from Crusade chronicles to pilgrimage narratives, and missionary reports; from translations of the mi‘raj (the night journey of Muhammad to Heaven) and other Arabic works to biographies of Muhammad in prose and verses. Distinct from Christian hagiographical models, the life of Muhammad perfectly served the polemical purposes endemic to numerous Latin texts.⁵ At the same time, however, like the dramatic lives of anti-heroes, protagonists of edifying stories, Muhammad’s biography held great fascination for the medieval public. This ambivalent attitude towards Muhammad’s life clearly emerges from reading Latin and Romance texts. They depict him in various guises: as a false prophet; an anti-saint; a precursor to the Antichrist or the final manifestation of the Antichrist himself; as a pagan god, and as a heresiarch protagonist of an extraordinaria historia.⁶ These categories have repeatedly been used to analyze and interpret the rich literary production concerning Muhammad⁷ but they seem to be inadequate, since they often overlap and can be equally applied to other historical figures. Thus far the surviving literary sources have also consistently been analyzed according to thematic and/or chronological systems, stressing contradictions and incongruencies in the knowledge and treatment of Islamic traditions in the different texts, and giving the impression of an unraveling tangle of voluminous and complex material.⁸ The problem with these methodological approaches is that the sources have been considered as if they belong to one homogeneous literary tradition, with

Ekkehart Rotter, Abendland und Sarazenen. Das okzidentale Araberbild und seine Entstehung im Frühmittelalter (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1986). 4 The first text, in which Muhammad is mentioned for the first time, is the Mozarabic Chronicle of 741, and the last one, according to my chronological choice, is the Enneades seu Rapsodiae Historiarum by Marcantonio Sabellico, written a little before 1504 in Venice. 5 See Marieke van Acker, ‘Mahomet dans ses biographies occidentales du Moyen Âge: entre Anti-Saint et Antéchrist’, PhD thesis, Universiteit Gent 1998–1999, but also John Victor Tolan, “Anti-Hagiography: Embricho of Mainz’s Vita Mahumeti,” Journal of Medieval History 22 (1996), 25–41. 6 This fascinating definition of Muhammad’s story is found in Thomas Tuscus, Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum, ed. E. Ehrenfeuchter, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores (in folio) XXII (Hannover: Hahn 1872), 492–493: Hec de Maumet in quadam extraordinaria legi historia, quam in sacristia Bononiensis ecclesie repperi in antiquissimo quodam libro. 7 See, for example, Tolan, Saracens, and Hartmut Bobzin, Mohammed (München: Beck, 2000), 9–19. 8 See, for example, Daniel, Islam and the West, 100–130.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 11

no consideration for the peculiar nature of each text and its role within a literary system. But if one examines these texts according to their literary characteristics, considering the agendas, audiences and literary conventions characteristic of each genre, distinct paradigmatic literary images of the Prophet can be identified. Each of these literary images is characterized by specific mechanisms of construction, meaning, origin and evolution, and by its capacity to create specific iconographical formulas. In this way, it is easier to discern and articulate the development of multiple images of the Prophet during the Middle Ages in European sources. Indeed, by classifying the texts according to their literary characteristics, three groups emerge.⁹ The first group encompasses theological treatises and missionary reports with apologetic, polemical and proselytizing intents (here “proselytizing” refers to texts intended to convert Muslims to Christianity). The second includes poetry or prose compositions written to edify, by entertaining, an educated public. The third consists of chronicles of the Crusades and crusader pilgrimage narratives, presenting events from a sacral and/or political perspective. To each of these groups of texts corresponds a distinct literary and visual image of Muhammad, which I will term the “pseudo-historical” Muhammad, the “legendary” Muhammad, and the “god Muhammad”. Each image of the Prophet constitutes a sort of paradigm, declined according to the conventions of the literary genre in which it is inserted. The first of these three paradigmatic images of the Prophet, the “pseudo-historical” Muhammad, is the earliest, originating in the outpouring of doctrinal literature and theological treatises stimulated by the confrontation of Christianity with Islam in the seventh century in Syria, and subsequently in the ninth century in Spain.¹⁰ It was elaborated and further defined later, in the twelfth century, by Peter the Venerable and his entourage of translators.¹¹ The definition of this image as pseudo-historical

9 The first approach of this kind was attempted by Y. and Ch. Pellat who outlined a tripartite classification of the Western writings dealing with Islam. However, they based their system of classification on different degrees of literariness, which is a questionable principle. See Y. Pellat and Ch. Pellat, “L’idée de Dieu chez les “Sarracins” des chansons de geste,” Studia Islamica 13 (1965), 5–42. 10 The earliest Eastern Christian ‘pseudo-historical biography’ of Muhammad is that inserted by John of Damascus in his De haeresibus, ch. 100; see Daniel Sahas, John of Damascus and the ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’ (Leiden: Brill, 1972), esp. 67–95; the earliest western Christian “pseudo-historical biography” of Muhammad is that inserted by Eulogius in his Liber Apologeticus Martyrum, for which see below. On the early mentions of Muhammad in non-Islamic religious contexts see Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Other Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997). 11 The bibliography on the Corpus Cluniacense (a collection of translations of the Qur’an and other Islamic texts promoted by Peter the Venerable, ninth abbot of Cluny, in 1142) is extensive; however, seminal texts on this topic include: Marie-Thérèse D’Alverny, “Deux traductions latines du Coran au Moyen Âge,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 16 (1947–48), 69–131, and “Pierre le Vénérable et la légende de Mahomet,” in À Cluny. Congrès scientifique, Fêtes et cérémonies

12 

 The Prophet in the Book

hinges upon the fact that while its authors claim to present the actual life of Muhammad, the Prophet’s portrayal is crafted from carefully selected events taken from Islamic tradition. The episodes from the Prophet’s life which are most frequently recounted in these texts are the following: the orphaned youth spent as a merchant in the service of the rich widow Khadija; the meeting with Christian and Jewish merchants; the wedding to the rich widow; the apparition of the archangel Gabriel, and the revelation and investiture with the mission of prophecy; the proclamation of the monotheistic religion through the revelation of Qur’anic verses; the presentiment of death; and, in addition, some episodes related to the several wives whom the Prophet took after the death of Khadija.¹² These events of Muhammad’s life are exaggerated and transformed in order to discredit the foundation and message of Islam, by portraying its founder as an anti-saint and alluding more or less explicitly to apocalyptical tradition, in which the pseudo-historical Muhammad fits into the figure of the pseudo-prophet, Antichrist’s forerunner, and the Antichrist himself.¹³ In almost every pseudo-historical biography these descriptions are full of seemingly accurate details, continuously providing the reader with the names of persons, places and dates, which reinforce the supposed historical validity of the narrative.

liturgiques en l’honneur des saints Abbés Odon et Odillon (Cluny, 9–10 Julliet 1949) (Dijon: Societé des Amis de Cluny, 1950), 161–170; James Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); Gabriella Braga, “Le prefazioni alle traduzioni dall’arabo nella Spagna del XII secolo: la valle dell’Ebro,” in La diffusione delle scienze islamiche nel Medio Evo europeo, Atti del Convegno internazionale organizzato dalla Fondazione Leone Caetani dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e dal Dipartimento di Studi Orientali della Facoltà di Lettere dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (Roma, 2–4 ottobre 1984), ed. Gabriella Braga and Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti (Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1987), 323–354; José Martínez Gázquez and Óscar de la Cruz Palma, “Las traducciones àrabe-latinas impulsadas por Pedro el Venerable,” in Las órdenes militares: realidad e imaginario, ed. Maria Dolores Burdeus, Elena Real and Joan Verdegal (Castelló: Universitat Jaume I, 2000), 285–296; Óscar de la Cruz Palma, “Los Textos della llamada Collectio Toletana, fuente de informacion sobre el Islam,” The Journal of Medieval Latin 17 (2007), 413–434; José Martínez Gázquez, “Translations of the Qur’an and Other Islamic Texts before Dante (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries),” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 79–92; Thomas Burman, Reading the Qur’ān. in Latin Christendom, 1140– 1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) On the image of Muhammad in the Corpus Cluniacense see: Michelina Di Cesare, “Pietro il Venerabile, Ka’b al-Ahbar e il Signum Ionae: per una nuova interpretazione del ‘ritratto’ di Muhammad nel Corpus Cluniacense,” in Per Gabriella. Studi in ricordo di Gabriella Braga, ed. Marco Palma and Cinzia Vismara (Cassino: Università di Cassino, forthcoming). 12 All these events are recorded in the Islamic genre of the Sirat Rasul Allah, see for example those by Ibn Ishaq and Tabari. 13 On the heresiological and eschatological meanings of this term, and the ‘rhetoric of the Antichrist’ see: Gian Luca Potestà and Marco Rizzi, L’Anticristo, vol. 1: Il nemico dei tempi finali. Testi dal II al IV secolo (Milano: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Mondadori, 2005), Introduction.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 13

We can see, for example, how information taken from the Islamic tradition is treated by Eulogius of Córdoba. Eulogius was a priest who participated in a movement of fervent Christians, who intentionally sought martyrdom through violation of the prohibition of blasphemy imposed by the Caliphs in Córdoba in the middle of the ninth century.¹⁴ Eulogius supported the movement of the Martyrs through his life (he was executed in 859) and writings, among which is the Liber Apologeticus Martyrum (The Book in Defense of the Martyrs). In this treatise he inserted an Istoria de Mahomet, which he reportedly found in a manuscript in Leyre, near Pamplona, in order to show the wickedness of the founder of Islam.¹⁵ Eulogius’s account describes how Mahomat, the future heresiarch, was an orphan placed in the charge of a certain widow, working for her as a usurer. During his travels he met many Christians and, “since he was the most cunning son of the darkness” (ut erat astutior tenebrae filius),¹⁶ he learnt their doctrines in order to be the wisest man among the Arabs. Then, taken by lust, he married the widow according to a barbaric law. One day the devil appeared to him as a vulture, claiming that he was the angel Gabriel, and ordered Mahomat to present himself as a prophet to his people. Mahomat was able to persuade the Arabs to abandon idols and to worship a corporeal God who abides in Heaven. He also composed false psalms in honor of Zacharias, Joseph and the Virgin Mary, desired and possessed the wife of one of his neighbours, and wrote in his law (Latin authors often refer to the Qur’an as a ‘law,’ lex) that God decreed that because he had married a wife repudiated by another, so the believers who came after him could do the same. When Mahomat felt that death was imminent, he foretold that Gabriel would come and resurrect him on the third day following his death. But then, the text recounts, he died and nothing happened. His followers,

14 On this phenomenon see: James Waltz, “The Significance of the Voluntary Martyr Movement of Ninth-Century Córdoba,” The Muslim World 60.2 (1970), 143–159, 226–236; Edward P. Colbert, The Martyrs of Córdoba (850–859). A Study of the Sources (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1982); Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Clayton J. Drees, “Sainthood and Suicide: the Motives of the Martyrs of Cordoba,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 20 (1990), 59–89; Jesús-María Saéz, El Movimiento martirial de Córdoba. Notas sobre la bibliografía (Alicante 2008), www.ua.es/personal/ jms/hc/mov_martirial.pdf. 15 The Istoria de Mahomet is also transmitted as an autonomous text in three manuscripts copied in the tenth and eleventh centuries in the region of La Rioja, but it seems to derive from Eulogius text. See Manuel Cecilio Díaz y Díaz, “Los textos antimahometanos más antiguos en cόdices españoles” with an appendix by Isabel Benedicto Ceinos, “Sobre la data y el origen de la Historia de Mahoma,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 45 (1970), 149–168 and 165–168. 16 Eulogius Cordubensis, Liber Apologeticus Martyrum 16, in Juan Gil, Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1973), 484.

14 

 The Prophet in the Book

thinking that the angels were scared by their presence, left the body unguarded, and dogs, attracted by the smell, came and devoured it.¹⁷ This kind of pseudo-historical narrative of Muhammad, aimed to reveal his “true” nature as a self-appointed prophet, who manipulated the Scriptures and created a new doctrine in order to satisfy base desires of power and lust, also produced a corresponding pseudo-historical visual representation of the Prophet. Two compelling portraits of Muhammad illustrate this point. The first image appears on fol. 44r¹⁸ of MS 26 preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University (fig. 2). The second appears on fol. 16v of MS 96 housed in the Library of Eton College in Windsor (fig. 3). The first manuscript contains the first part of Matthew Paris’s Chronica Maiora (Major Chronicles), from Creation up to 1188.¹⁹ It was executed at St. Albans circa 1240–1253, under the supervision of Matthew himself, who also copied parts of the text, simultaneously inserting lengthy notations and twenty-five marginal drawings of a narrative or emblematic nature. This manuscript of the Chronica Maiora is therefore an extraordinary document because it allows us to witness how the literary portrait of the pseudo-historical Muhammad was translated into a visual image by the author of the text. The image of Muhammad on fol. 44r (fig. 2) is individuated by the titulus “Machometus”. Muhammad is set frontally between two columns of text which specifically refer to his life.²⁰ He stands upon a wild boar (labeled sus), with his arms raised and two scrolls spreading from his hands across the upper margin. The inscrip-

17 The text has been edited by Gil, Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum, 363–495; for an English translation of the Istoria de Mahomat including a commentary, see Kenneth Baxter Wolf, “The earliest Latin lives of Muhammad,” in Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands. Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. by Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies 1990), 89–101. See also: Pedro Herrera Roldán, “Propaganda antiislámica en la Cordoba del s. IX: la ‘Historia del falso profeta Mahoma’,” in Actas del I Congreso de Latín Medieval (León, 1–4 de diciembre de 1993), ed. Maurilio Pérez González (León: Universidad de León 1995), 274–84; Kenneth Baxter Wolf, “Muhammad as Antichrist in Ninth-Century Córdoba,” in Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change, ed. Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English (Notre-Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 3–19; Janna Wasilewski, “The ‘Life of Muhammad’ in Eulogius of Cόrdoba: Some Evidence for the Transmission of Greek Polemic to the Latin West,” Early Medieval Studies 16 (2008), 333–353. 18 Also paginated as p. 87. 19 The second part is contained in Cambridge University, Corpus Christi College, MS 16, the third in London, British Library, MS Royal 14.C.VII. For the figure of Matthew Paris and his idiographic manuscripts of the Chronica Maiora, see Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1958); Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the “Chronica Majora” (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987). In particular, for MS 26, see: Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1: 1190–1250. Vol. 4 of A Survey of manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander (London: Miller 1982), 136–139, catalogue no. 88. 20 See Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica Maiora, ed. Henry Richard Luard (London: Longman and Co., 1872–1883), vol. 1, 269–272.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

Fig. 2: “Machometus,” Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, ink drawing on vellum, 1240–1253, Ms. 26, fol. 44r. Cambridge, Library of Corpus Christi College.

 15

16 

 The Prophet in the Book

tion on the scroll on the left side reads Poligamus esto. Scriptum est enim: Crescite et multiplicamini (Be polygamous. It is written, in fact: “Be fruitful and multiply”). The inscription on the right side reads Presentes delicias pro futuris non spernite (“Do not have contempt for the present pleasures for the sake of future ones”). Suzanne Lewis, who discusses this image in her book The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Maiora, states “Matthew’s portrayal of Mohammed is still clearly antihagiographical, focusing on his horrible death as punishment for his evil life as a licentious hypocrite and false prophet”.²¹ Taking into consideration the dominant position granted to the image of Muhammad within the entirety of the written page, and focusing on the subtle visual components and literary refinements of the text written in the scrolls, another reading of the image may be suggested. As already noted by Strickland, the figure of Muhammad in this manuscript lacks any pictorial sign of evil. This oddity, she explains, is understandable upon contemplation of the text of the Chronica next to this image. While the image appears positive, or lacking in slanderous content, the corresponding passage of the Chronica Maiora defames his name explicitly.²² Indeed, at first, glance, we are astonished by the absence of negative traits. Moreover, even the pig in this illustration, which may be interpreted as a negative motif through its allusion to the horrible death of the Prophet, is depicted in a harmless manner. It curls up at Muhammad’s feet like a domestic cat or a dog in a comfortable, and even comforting, position. Although it may be initially surprising, the frontal figure of Muhammad, positioned with both of his arms raised, brings to mind the conventional iconography of Christ ascending to Heaven. His arms are opened like those of an orante proclaiming his faith or those of a preacher who invites his audience to embrace his message. Even the inscribed scrolls he holds allude to the scrolls normally exhibited by Old Testament prophets. Yet the key to deciphering the ambiguity of this illustration is found in the specific messages written on both scrolls positioned across the breadth of the whole folio. In the text displayed on the left scroll, Muhammad, as one would expect of a prophet, cites the word of God. He refers to the blessing of man by God to multiply²³, but he interprets it as God’s commandment for polygamy. The second scroll on the right side appears as the result of this supposed commandment. It advocates the pursuit of a lustful life, focusing on present rewards rather than on future consequences. By misinterpreting and manipulating the word of God on the first scroll, Muhammad

21 Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris, 101. Her interpretation is followed by Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 190–193. 22 Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews, 190, states “While the figure itself does not exhibit the usual pictorial signs of evil that we have observed in other contexts, the accompanying text explicates some of the ‘facts’ of Muhammad’s vita as concocted by Matthew and by earlier writers, which together form a perverse version of a saint’s life”. 23 Crescite et multiplicamini clearly refers to the specific wording in Genesis 1, 28.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 17

here overturns the principles of Christian doctrine by reducing the importance of the future and the afterlife for the sake of the present pleasure. The moment the duplicitous nature of these scrolls is understood, the meaning of the prophetic appearance of Muhammad on the supposedly harmless pig is unveiled. Muhammad is revealed to be a pseudo-prophet hiding behind seemingly prophetical and semi-Christological sayings. Perhaps then the harmless pig conceals under its skin the ferocity of a wild boar. It seems clear that this image functions to underscore the heretical message spread by Muhammad and its seductive force, rather than on any episode taken from his life.²⁴ In the second example of the pseudo-historical literary image of the Prophet impacting the visual depiction of Muhammad, now preserved in Eton College in Windsor (fig. 3), his portrait is inserted in one of the several roundels that illustrate a diagrammatic representation of history, from Creation to the year 1245 CE, accompanying the text of Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium Veteris Testamenti (Summary of the Old Testament) integrated with a Universal Chronicle.²⁵ In this typology of diagrammatic historical works, originally thought to be written on scrolls,²⁶ text and image work together and synthesize events separated by centuries. It is worth noting that

24 Interestingly, in a marginal notation written in red to the right of the figure of the Prophet, Matthew recalled another passage of the Chronica Maiora dealing with Muhammad. His notation reads: Haec autem in anno gratiae MCCXXXVI, quae de Machometo vera sunt plenius dicuntur. Furthermore, among the events recorded in the year 1236, and attributed to preachers active in the East, Matthew included a passage focusing on the doctrine of Muhammad rather than the events of his life (Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica Maiora, vol. 3, 344–361). In so doing, he seems to echo the content of the painted scrolls in presenting Gn 1, 28, as quoted in the Qur’an by Muhammad, as an invitation to lust. Moreover, another reference to the portrait of the Prophet on f. 44r of MS 26 can be identified in the association of Islam with Epicureism which is made in this same passage. Basic information on this philosophical doctrine was available to Medieval readers through Isidore of Sevilla’s Ethymologiae, 8, 6, 15, where the famous definition of Epicurus as porcus (pig), after Horace Ep. 1, 4, 10, is found. This seems to be alluded to in the representation of the sus in Muhammad’s portrait. On the texts reported in the chronicle of year 1236, see: James M. Powell, “Matthew Paris, the Lives of Muhammad, and the Dominicans,” in Dei Gesta per Francos. Études sur les croisades dédiées a Jean Richard/Crusade Studies in Honour of Jean Richard, ed. Michael Balard, Benjamin Z. Kedar, and Jonathan Riley Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001) 65–69, and Maurits Vandecasteele, “Étude comparative de deux versions latines médiévales d’une apologie arabochrétienne: Pierre le Vénérable et le Rapport Grégorien,” Academiae Analecta (Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschapen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren) 53 (1991), 81–134. 25 See Nigel J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 2: 1250–1290. Vol. 4 of A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander (London: Miller 1988), 140–141, catalogue no. 90. Peter’s genealogical schema is often followed or interpolated by Universal Chronicles. See Philip S. Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, Master in Theology and Chancellor of Paris (1193–1205) (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1936), 188–196. 26 Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, 100; Beryl Smalley, Lo studio della Bibbia nel Medioevo. Trans. Vincenzo Benassi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1972), 302.

18 

 The Prophet in the Book

Fig. 3: “Mahum,” Peter of Poitiers, Compendium Veteris Testamenti, ink drawing on vellum, 1245–1254, MS 96 fol. 16v, Windsor, College Library of Eton.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 19

both the script and iconography of MS 96 are related to the idiographic manuscripts of Matthew Paris’ Chronica Maiora, and for this reason the codex has been attributed to the scriptorium of St. Albans, during the years 1245–1254. Muhammad’s image appears on fol. 16v, in the midst of the textual passage recounting the life of the Prophet, inside a medallion upon which Mahum is written in red.²⁷ Muhammad is portrayed as a bearded man, and is positioned in a three-quarter view. He has a long nose, pointed hat, and expels a monstrous black winged creature from his mouth. Lewis and Strickland argue that the monster is Muhammad’s evil soul escaping from his mouth at the point of death.²⁸ However, both textual and visual evidence suggests that this is the portrait of Muhammad as a pseudo-prophet rather than the depiction of the specific moment of his death, and that the monstrous winged creature is Muhammad’s nefarious message. Indeed, the text adjacent to the medallion reads, et dicens se messyam multos Iudeorum decepit (“And, saying that he was the Messiah, he deceived many of the Jews”). The fact that the image of Muhammad has been drawn in direct proximity to this passage compels the reader to interpret the portrait as one of a deceiver, as a portrait of a man who spread a false message and knowingly manipulated a prophecy from the Old Testament. Specific iconographic details underscore this damning characterization. The very peculiar shape of the hat worn by Muhammad recalls conventional depictions of the Antichrist, resembling, for example, the pointed hat worn by the Antichrist in fol. 17r of ms. fr. 403 preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.²⁹ This manuscript, containing the text of John’s Revelation, was produced in the same period and cultural context as the Eton College manuscript. In the light of these considerations it is far more plausible that the horrible monster issuing from Muhammad’s mouth ought to be interpreted as the false and ruinous message spread by Muhammad the deceiver, the Antichrist³⁰. In addition to this, since this image has been conceived in the same milieu as the Eton manuscript, itself attributed to the very scriptorium in which Matthew Paris produced his text and images, it is reasonable to suggest that both the black winged creature in MS 96 and the scrolls held by Muhammad in the Chronica Maiora carry analogous messages. Both the black winged

27 Mahum, Mahun, Mahoun(e), Mahon(e), Mahown, Machoun, etc. are Middle English altered forms of the name Muhammad. See Michel Masson, “À propos de la forme du nom de Mahomet,” Bulletin de la SELEFA 2 (2003), 1–8. 28 Both scholars compare this depiction to the image of dying Saladin in Cambridge University, Corpus Christi College Library MS 16, fol. 13v (Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, years 1189–1253). See Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris, 270; Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews, 191. 29 See Suzanne Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-century Illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 110 (fig. 75). For a description of this manuscript, BnF fr. 403 see: Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 2: 1250–1290, 63–66, catalogue no. 103. 30 We find here an overlapping of the heresiological and eschatological meaning of the term, for which see n. 13.

20 

 The Prophet in the Book

creature and the scrolls emphasize the deceitful nature of the words transmitted from his mouth while preaching³¹. Both of these images of Muhammad thus focus on the “real” nature of Muhammad’s message, that is, its intentionally deceptive content, and are aimed at dissuading Christian readers from following it. They are both characteristic examples of the visual expression of the pseudo-historical literary image of Muhammad, equally intent on exposing the falsehood on which Islam is grounded, thereby destroying its powerful allure. The second paradigmatic image of the Prophet propagated by Latin and Romance texts is here termed the “legendary” Muhammad.³² It has the same origin as the pseudo-historical literary image but followed its own particular trajectory of development. In fact, some historical events of the life of Muhammad are maintained (his orphaned youth, his marriage to a widow, his contacts with Jews and Christians), but they are completely twisted and elaborated according to narrative mechanisms similar to those recognized by Propp regarding folktales³³ and to the rhetorical strategy of the medieval exemplum.³⁴ It is the more fascinating literary image of Muhammad, to which entire texts have been dedicated, such as the famous Vita Mahumeti (The Life of Mahumet) written by Embrico of Mainz, the Otia de Machometo (Leisure on Mahomet) by Gautier of Compiègne, and, in Old French, Le Roman de Mahomet (The Romance of Mahomet) by Alexandre du Pont.³⁵

31 This interpretation seems to be supported by a passage of the Commentary to the Revelation written by Beatus of Liébana, where an analogous association between the heretical message and the evil spirits expelled by the mouth of the Dragon, the Beast and the Pseudo-Prophet as described in Revelation 7, 1 is found. See: Beati Liebanensis Tractatus de Apocalipsin, ed. Roger Gryson and Marie-Claire de Biève (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), vol. 2, 789. Regarding the visual renderings of this same passage in the illustrated Beatus manuscripts, see: Inés Monteira Árias, “Retour aux Beatus: Mahomet pseudo-prophète et les musulmans idolâtres dans la sculture romane (IX–XIII siècle),” in Christiane J. Gruber and Avinoam Shalem, eds., The Image of the Prophet Between Ideal and Ideology: A Scholarly Investigation (forthcoming), where she brilliantly proposes to identify the Pseudo-Prophet appearing in this scene as Muhammad. Since the iconographic program of the Beatus manuscripts was already found in the archetype of the Commentary, a lost manuscript of the eighth century, this should be recognized as the first Western portrait of the Prophet Muhammad. 32 I have termed this image as “legendary” after D’Ancona’s study: D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto. In fact, although this pioneering work gathered all the texts dealing with the life of Muhammad written during the Middle Ages under the term leggenda, the texts with the legendary features I have individuated are only a part of D’Ancona’s survey. 33 For the mechanisms of the construction of folktales see Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott, 3rd ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). 34 See Claude Bremond, Jacques Le Goff, and Jean-Claude Schmitt, L’exemplum (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982). 35 For a discussion of these three poems and their relations, see Stephan Hotz, Mohammed und seine Lehre in der Darstellung abendländischer Autoren vom späten 11. bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts. Aspekte, Quellen und Tendenzen in Kontinuität und Wandel, (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002); Tolan, “Anti-Hagiography”; Yvan G. Lepage and R. B. C. Huygens, Le roman de Mahomet de Alexandre du

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 21

The main schema of the story, subject to variations in the order of events, locations and roles of the characters, can be summarized as follows: There is an orphan of low-birth, a servant of a powerful master, who lives in a peripheral area of the orbis christianus. One day he meets a heretical monk who aids him to gain power and wealth through marriage to the widow of his master. The monk uses him to spread a heresy against Christianity with a very licentious law, in order to take revenge against the ecclesiastic hierarchy. The licentious characteristic of the message, combined with the false miracles and ingenious tricks by which it is promulgated by the protagonist, fascinate the wild people of the desert, so much so that he is appointed their king. Then, at the height of his success, he suddenly dies in shameful circumstances. Fixed characters which can be spotted in the story thus include: an orphan merchant who lives in a peripheral area, and whose name is Mathomus, Mamutius, or Machumet;³⁶ an ecclesiastic refused by the orthodox hierarchy; the widow sovereign of a rich land; and the wild and beastly people of the desert, who are often presented as simpletons. Other narratological characteristics are: vagueness of time and space;³⁷ an absence of names to identify the main figures, such as the monk, the widow and the various other people involved in the story; an absence of theological interests; and the emphasis on the false miracles by which Muhammad wins general consent. These false miracles, or rather tricks, can be considered as three τόποι, consisting of: the episode of the tamed bull, the episode of the trained dove, and that of the hidden vessels. The τόπος of the tamed bull features a wild bull, sometimes a cow or a calf, which is tamed by Muhammad and trained to eat from his hands. So that on the day chosen for the promulgation of the Law, the animal instantly recognizes Muhammad and comes near and kneels in front of him without coaxing. Just prior to Muhammad’s announcements, a book is affixed to the horns of the bull, so that people will believe that God sent his Word to Muhammad, in the form of the book carried to him by the subservient bull. In the τόπος of the trained dove, a wicked monk—or even Muhammad himself—trains a dove to peck grains from Muhammad’s ear, so that the bird flies directly to his ear and alights on his shoulder, creating the false impression that the Holy Spirit is transmitting divine messages to Muhammad. The τόπος of the

Pont (1258). Édition critique précédée d’une étude sur quelques aspects de la légende de Mahomet au Moyen Âge. Avec le texte des Otia de Machomete de Gautier de Compiègne (Paris: Klinsieck, 1977); Robert Burchard Constantijn Huygens, “Otia de Machomete, Gedicht von Walter von Compiègne,” Sacris erudiri 8 (1956), 287–328. See also Tolan, Saracens, 133–147. 36 Sometimes he is also called Ozim, or Nycholaus, who was a famous heresiarch in late antiquity. The first name is recorded in the Tultusceptru de libro domni Metobii. See Díaz y Díaz, “Los textos antimahometanos más antiguos,” and Wolf, “The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad”. The second name is found in the Liber Nycolay. See Fernando González Muñoz, “La leyenda de Mahoma y el cardenal Nicolás,” Al-Qantara 25 (2004), 5–43. 37 The places mentioned in the texts are related only to the life of the monk before meeting Muhammad.

22 

 The Prophet in the Book

hidden vessels features Muhammad as the protagonist. Muhammad fills two vessels, one with milk and the other with honey, and stealthily hides them in a certain place. Then he encourages people to look for a sign of divine approval, subtly directing them to the hidden place and encouraging them to dig in the earth. In the course of this act, they break the hidden vessels and mistake the flowing milk and honey for a miracle that confirms his prophetic status. The first and the second of these literary τόποι become painted as iconographical themes in some fifteenth-century manuscripts. Most of them are luxurious products of French workshops, among which copies of Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, the French translation of Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of the Noble Men) made by Laurent de Premierfait in 1409, is a prominent group.³⁸ These manuscripts usually feature an illustration at the beginning of each chapter of the nine books in which the work is organized.³⁹ The final and ninth book is often preceded by a large miniature displaying Muhammad in the act of preaching to a group of onlookers. Sometimes this scene occurs independently, or else it is conflated with the representation of Queen Brunechild’s quartering, an event which is narrated in the same book.⁴⁰ A compelling example of this painted tradition (in which Brunechild’s death is not illustrated) occurs on fol. 243r in ms. fr. 226, preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris (fig. 4). A golden frame, situated between the summary of the entire book and that of its first chapter, encloses a scene depicting the proclamation of the Qur’an. The scene occurs in a placid green and brightly lit landscape, featuring a relatively large tree visible in the distance. Three bearded men and two women appear on the left side of the miniature. They sit and listen intently to the preacher who stands adjacent to them on a pulpit, also on the left side of the painted image. The preacher, Muhammad, is shown bearded, wears a blue cloak and covers his head with a green turban. A white dove rests on his left shoulder with its beak positioned close to his ear, as if it were whispering to him. Addressing his audience, Muhammad opens his hands, as if to emphasize his words. Remarkably, a bull, bearing an

38 I am referring here to the second translation. 39 A group of twenty manuscripts, on the contrary, includes only nine or ten illuminations corresponding to each of the books that form the text, in addition to the prologue. 40 These manuscripts include: Genève, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, ms. Fr. 190, fol. 147r; Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 5193, fol. 357v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 226, 243r; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. Fr. 228, fol. 354v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. Fr. 236, fol. 184r; Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 5192, fol. 302v; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ms. Gall. 6, fol. 310v; Genève, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, ms. Fr. 191, fol. 289r; Ramsen, Antiquariat Heribert Tenschert, fol. 217v; London, British Library, Add. Ms. 35321, fol. 284v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. Fr. 234, fol. 171v; London, British Library, ms. Harley 621, fol. 369r; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 127, fol. 279r; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, ms. G 35, fol. 307v. On these manuscripts see Vittore Branca, ed., Boccaccio visualizzato: narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Torino: Einaudi, 1999), vol. 3.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

Fig. 4: “Mahomet prêchant (Muhammad preaching),” Giovanni Boccaccio, Les cas des nobles hommes et femmes, trans. Laurent de Premierfait, first quarter of the fifteenth century, MS fr. 226, fol. 243r, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

 23

24 

 The Prophet in the Book

open book between its horns, enters the scene from the right edge of the image and approaches Muhammad mounted on the pulpit, ready to astound his audience. It is interesting to observe that although the other protagonists of Les cas des nobles are represented suffering cruel and bloody ends, the image of Muhammad instead emphasizes his ability as a talented preacher, without accentuating any of the pejorative or shameful details of his supposedly deceitful actions. The reason for this is to be found, perhaps, in the very nature of the translation made by Laurent himself. Laurent did not offer a simple translation of Boccaccio’s Latin text, but rather he conceptualized a lengthy commentary and its visual rendering.⁴¹ While the original Latin text of Boccaccio consists only of a few lines of script, touching briefly on select aspects of the figure of Muhammad, Laurent’s commentary consists of approximately four full written folios and is consequently much richer in detail. Boccaccio’s text reads, Seductor ille nequam Mahumeth veniebat, cuius artes quam libentissime audissem novit Deus, et qualiter, post prophete nomen assumptum legesque letiferas datas in suam luxuriam, deperisset. Sed mulier quidam, imo demon, adveniens me his abstulit.⁴² It thus emphasizes the following features of Muhammad: his seductiveness (seductor), his ability to materialize ideas (artes), that he was both a self-made prophet (prophete nomen assumptum) and a Law-giver—albeit to justify his own lustful desires—(legesque letiferas datas in suam luxuria), and the mysterious nature of his death (qualiter... deperisset). Laurent, in contrast, clearly dismisses any query regarding Muhammad’s death in his commentary and is instead fascinated by his artes, namely Muhammad’s demagogical power to manipulate his audience through extraordinary and elaborate trickery. Laurent’s shift in emphasis is the likely explanation for the absence of any reference to Muhammad’s death in the illustration, in favor of the accentuation of his enchanting instruments of persuasion. One wonders, for a moment, if Boccaccio and Laurent were no less fascinated by Muhammad’s trickery than the audience depicted in this scene. This might explain the synthesis of the τόποι of the tamed bull and of the trained dove into a single framed scene and the visual emphasis given to allure of the Prophet. The audience is shown as if mesmerized by Muhammad’s word and therefore completely unaware, apart from one figure, of the fantastic bull that slowly approaches the pulpit. The third literary image, the “god Muhammad”, is a particular product of the theological context of the Crusades. It appears for the first time in select accounts of

41 On the attribution of the iconographical program to Laurent, see Branca, Boccaccio visualizzato, vol. 3, 6. 42 Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium 9, 1, in Vittore Branca, ed., Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. Vol. 9: De casibus virorum illustrium, ed. Pier Giorgio Ricci and Vittorio Zaccaria (Milano: Mondadori, 1983), 748: “That famous seducer Muhammad came close. God knows with what a pleasure I would like to hear of his persuasive techniques and how, after assuming the name of Prophet and giving mortal laws to satisfy his lust, he died. But a woman, no, a demon, coming close, took me away from these thoughts”.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 25

the First Crusade and regularly thereafter in several Chansons de geste. The defining feature of these texts is the description and depiction of Muhammad as an idol worshiped by the Saracens. At first glance there seems to be a fundamental distinction between this image and the previous two. The pseudo-historical and the legendary literary images insert Muhammad in a Christian, although heretical, context, while the god Muhammad belongs to a pagan one. The heretical characterization of the Prophet of Islam, which may seem slightly strange today, was an understandable reaction on the part of medieval Christians. From their theological and teleological perspective, Christ’s resurrection had supplanted any other religious belief altogether, Christianizing the whole orbis.⁴³ Therefore, from this perspective, any additional or new religious phenomenon could be produced only within and from Christianity itself. Moreover, many aspects of Islam were very close to the anti-trinitarian heresies of the early Christian era. And yet, the literary image of the god Muhammad is totally different. According to this paradigm, Muhammad is usually depicted as a pagan god worshiped by the Saracens, often represented in the shape of a golden idol. In the first two cases, Muhammad is perceived as part of a monotheistic culture and presented as a product of Christian history, whereas in the third case, he seems to be rejected and placed outside the time and space of salvation. Yet in actual fact, the image of the god Muhammad is easily integrated into Christian history, when interpreted as an eschatological metaphor. Many scriptural passages and their exegeses prophesize that the end of the world and the parousia of Christ will be announced by the advent of the Antichrist.⁴⁴ Among the numerous deeds attributed to him, it is said that the Antichrist will be a man who, like the prophets, will fascinate people by performing miracles, will try to attract Christians and Jews to follow him as the true Christ, will gain the consent of kings, and, after gathering all people on earth under his control, will enter Jerusalem to proclaim himself a god. He will rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans, and, finally, he will erect an idol in his own image, which his followers will then adore. Many of these events ascribed to the life of the Antichrist are strongly analogous to those of Muhammad’s life, and to the deeds of his successors, as described in surviving pseudo-historical biographies. These texts, as seen before, characterize Muhammad as a false prophet, who knew of and manipulated the contents of both the Old and New Testaments. In these, it is emphasized that he succeeded in persuad-

43 This concept is perfectly illustrated in the mappa mundi found on fols. 34v–35r of an eleventhcentury Beatus manuscript kept at Burgo de Osma (Archivo de la Catedral, Cod. 1). 44 See Wilhelm Bousset, The Antichrist Legend. A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore, trans. A. H. Keane (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1896); Richard Kenneth Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages: a Study of Medieval Apocalypticism, Art, and Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981); Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Potestà and Rizzi, L’Anticristo, vol. 1.

26 

 The Prophet in the Book

ing many people to embrace his law, and that prior to his death, he prophesized about his coming resurrection in three days. His successors are presented as conquerors of wide territories, among which, of course, Jerusalem and the Holy Land are prominent. Some pilgrimage narratives written after the First Crusade, such as those written by the Anonymus of 1130,⁴⁵ Fretellus (1130–1148),⁴⁶ Innominatus VI (1148),⁴⁷ and John of Würzburg (1165),⁴⁸ identify the Dome of the Rock as the Templum Domini restored a

45 Anonymus, De situ urbis Ierusalem, 11, 36, in Itinera Hierosolymitana Crucesignatorum, saec. XII– XIII, ed. Sabino De Sandoli (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum and Franciscan Printing Press, 1978–1984), vol. 1, 100: Edificavit rex Salomon Templum, id est Bethel, et altare, que sub incomparabili sumptu devote et solemniter dedicavit. Quod Nabugodonosor tempore Sedechie regis prophanans totum expoliavit, et urbem evertit (…). Deinde Nabuzardam Syon totam delevit et edem, que postea sub Cyro, rege Persarum, reedificata est ab Esdra scriba et Neemia. Quod Templum iterum ab Antiocho destructum sub Machabeis reedificatum est. Quod et prophanavit Pompeius hospitatus in eo, cum fugeret a facie Iulii Cesaris. Ad ultimum Tyto et Vespasiano tertium illud templum funditus deletum est. De hoc sub Constantino Imperatore ab Helena reedificatum perhibent, alii ab Eraclio imperatore, alii a Iustiniano Augusto, alii a quodam ammiraldo Menphis Egipti, sub honore Alachiber, id est summi Dei, quod superscriptio Sarracena manifeste declarat. 46 Fretellus, Liber locorum sanctorum terrae Ierusalem, 5, 1–2, in Itinera Hierosolymitana, vol. 2, 136: Aedificavit ergo rex Salomon templum Domino in Bethel et altare, quod aedificavit incomparabili sumptu, petens quod quicunque Dominum consuleret in eo de quocunque exaudiri mereretur. Quod concessum fuit ei a Domino; ergo domus Domini consilii est. Illud autem post incontinentia principis et populi exspoliavit Nabuchodonosor, per Nabusardam, principem coquorum suorum, tempore Sedeciae regis, ipsumque privatum ab urbe, totumque, quod pretiosum in aede, et in urbe fuit, iussitque praesentari in Babylonem et populum; paulo post quidem Pharao necessario templum et urbem delevit. Modo vero relatori auditorique non videatur taediosum sub quibus et a quibus restructiones et destructiones primi, secundi et tertii templi fuerint, enuntiare hic de praesenti omitto. Bethel sub quo et a quo principe restitutum fuit ignoratur. Quidam enim sub Constantino imperatore ab Helena matre sua reaedificatum fuisse perhibent pro reverentia Sanctae Crucis ab ea repertae; alii ab Heracleo imperatore, pro reverentia ligni Domini, quod de perfidis Perside triumphans retulerat; alii ab Augustiniano Augusto; alii quoque a quodam admiratore Mymphis Aegypti, pro reverentia Alachiber summi Dei, et quoniam ad ipsum colendum ab omni lingua reverendum veneratur. 47 Innominatus VI, Beda de descripcione eiusdem Terrae sanctae, 9, in Itinera Hierosolymitana, vol. 3, 70: Revera hoc de praesenti Bethel, prout verius queam, omnibus haec legentibus elucidare conabor, licet vere ignoretur, sub quo vel a quo principe restitutum sit. Quidam enim sub Constantino imperatore ab Helena matre sua perhibent reaedificatum fuisse pro reverentia Sanctae Crucis ab ea repertae; alii ab Heraclio imperatore, pro reverentia ligni Domini, quod de Perside triumphans gloriose retulerat; alii a Iustiniano Augusto; alii a quodam ammiraldo Memphis sub honore Allachiberti, id est summi Dei. Et quoniam ad ipsum colendum ab omni lingua reverende veneratur – quod verius fuisse sarracena superscriptio nobis declarat –. Praesens hoc templum, quartum, praedicatur. 48 Johannes Wirzburgensis, Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, 3, in Itinera Hierosolymitana, vol. 2, 234 and 236: Et aedificavit rex Salomon in area Domino templum, id est Bethel, et altare, quod et dicavit incomparabili sumptu, petens a Domino quod, quicunque consuleret eum in eo, exaudiri mereretur, quod concessum fuit ei a Domino. Ergo domus Domini domus consilii. Illud autem postea pro incontinentia principis et populi, Deo puniente, exspoliavit Nabuchodonosor per Nabuzardam, principem coquorum, tempore Sedeziae regis, ipsumque privatum ab urbe totumque, quod speciosum fulgebat in aede et in urbe, tulit iussitque sibi in Babylone praesentari populum. Paulo post quidem Pharao Nechao templum

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 27

quodam ammiraldo (by a certain emir). The conflation of these traditions produced the belief that an idol of Muhammad, the Antichrist, was to be found in the Temple. Therefore, narratives of the Antichrist’s deeds are the likely origin of the representation of Muhammad as a god in the shape of an idol. A fundamental text for this argument is the Gesta Tancredi (The Deeds of Tancred), a prosimetric narrative of the First Crusade and its aftermath (1096–1106), written by Raoul (Ralph) de Caen in 1112–1118. Raoul followed the Norman army, lead by Bohemond of Taranto, to the Holy Land. When Tancredi became prince of Antioch, Raoul then joined his service. The crucial passage appears in chapter 129, which recounts how Tancredi broke into the Templum Domini and was astonished by the presence of a statue he found there:⁴⁹ Stabat in excelso simulacrum fusile throno, Scilicet argentum grave, cui vix sena ferendo Dextera sufficiat fortis, vix dena levando. Hoc ubi Tancredus prospectat, “Proh pudor!” inquit, “Quid sibi vult praesens, quae stat sublimis imago? Quid sibi vult haec effigies? Quid gemma? Quid aurum? Quid sibi vult ostrum?” Nam gemmis totus et ostro Mahumet redimitus erat, radiabat et auro, “Forsitan hoc Martis, vel Apollinis est simulacrum: Numquid enim Christus? Non hic insignia Christi, Non crux, non sertum, non clavi, non latus haustum: ergo neque hic Christus, quin pristinus Antichristus, Mahummet pravus, Mahummet perniciosus O si huius socius nunc affore, ille futurus Iam meus, hic ambos pes supprimat Antichristos…⁵⁰

delevit et urbem. Modo vero, ne relatori videatur absurdum auditorique taediosum, sub quibus et a quibus restructiones et destructiones primi, secundi et tertii templi extiterunt, enumerare, hoc de praesenti Bethel, prout verius queam, tibi, dilecte mi, elucidare conabor. De Bethel vero, sub quo et a quo principe restitutum sit, fere ignoratur. Quidam enim sub Constantino imperatore ab Helena matre sua reaedificatum fuisse perhibent pro reverentia Sanctae Crucis ab ea repertae; alii ab Heraclio imperatore, pro reverentia ligni Domini, quod de Perside triumphans retulerat; alii a Iustiniano Augusto; alii a quodam imperatore Memphis Aegypti, pro reverentia Allah Kebir, id est summi Dei, quoniam ad ipsum colendum devote ab omni lingua veneratur. 49 Muratova claims that this idol could be a roman statue from the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, a fascinating but impracticable hypothesis. See Xenia Muratova, “Western Chronicles of the First Crusade as Sources for the History of Art,” in The Holy Land in Crusader art in the twelfth century, ed. Jaroslav Folda (The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem – Oxford: B.A.R., 1982), 47–69. 50 Radulphus Cadomensis, Gesta Tancredi in expeditione Hierosolymitana, chap. 129, vv. 1–13, in Patrologiae cursus completus, accurante J. P. Migne. Series Latina (Lutetiae Parisiorum: apud J.-P. Migne editorem, 1844–1855), vol. 155, col. 571. The translation is mine.

28 

 The Prophet in the Book

[There was a cast statue on a high placed throne, it was a heavy, silver statue, which six strong right arms could hardly carry, which ten right arms could hardly raise. When Tancredi sees it from a distance, he says: “For shame! What does this image before me mean? What does this high placed, imposing image mean? What does this depiction mean? What does gemstone mean? What does gold? What does purple?” In fact it was Muhammad, bound all over with gemstones and purple, and it shone because of the gold. “Perhaps this is the statue of Mars, or of Apollo; or maybe Christ? Here there are not the signs of Christ: not the cross, not the crown, not the nails, not the drained side.⁵¹ Therefore, this is not Christ, but the very first⁵² Antichrist, the depraved Muhammad, the ruinous Muhammad. If his companion were here now, he would already be mine, my foot would press down and kill both Antichrists”]. The specific manner in which the discovery of the idol in the Temple is narrated by Raoul is fascinating. The text consists of distinct moments charting Tancredi’s reaction to an unforeseen, highly unusual image in this sacred place. Each phase of assessing the unknown image is presented sequentially, allowing the reader to follow Tancredi’s individual thought process, from his initial confusion towards the presence of a statue, to his comprehension and labeling of its subject. From the very first moment, Tancredi confronts the silver enthroned statue and considers the meaning of the image, tacitly accepting its unexpected presence in the Temple. In order to determine its function and meaning, Tancredi specifically contemplates its particular mode of display, appearance, constituent materials and coloring. His cognitive process is then interrupted by the voice of the narrator, Raoul, who identifies the image as Muhammad. The insertion of Raoul’s words at this particular moment affects the pace of the narrative, both decreasing the tension conferred upon the reader by Tancredi’s initial surprise and also anticipating the conclusion, making the reader privy to the solution of the enigma before Tancredi himself realizes the answer. Raoul is once again silent, and the reader witnesses the questions that govern Tancredi’s antinomic thought process. He first speculates whether this is a statue of Mars or Apollo from the pagan era. Then, in contradiction to this, he examines the possibility that this statue is a representation of Christ. Rejecting all of these possibilities, he then realizes that this is not the image of Christ, but rather its opposite, namely the image of the Antichrist, solving the puzzling identity of the statue in a moment of instantaneous comprehension. The first Antichrist is then securely identified as Muhammad. From this deductive reasoning the difference between the pagan gods and Muhammad clearly emerges. Thus, it can be inferred that the image of the idol Muhammad is not necessarily linked with paganism, but rather with the idea of the worship of the idol of the Antichrist in the Temple. This image of Muhammad is absorbed into the eschatological vision of the Christian history of salvation, for which the First Crusade

51 This is a poetic description of the wound in Christ’s side. 52 On the question of many antichrists/Antichrists, see Potestà and Rizzi, L’Anticristo, vol. 1.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

 29

was thought to be an apical moment. Thus, by destroying the statue of the first Antichrist, Tancredi momentously restores Christian control over Jerusalem.⁵³ This literary image of the god Muhammad crystallizes and loses its eschatological meaning in the Chansons de geste, where Muhammad is commonly represented as an idol of large dimensions, covered in gold or silver, studded with precious jewels, and swathed in purple. This same image is also recorded as being regularly painted on standards, shields and war tents.⁵⁴ These texts often record the god Muhammad together with the gods Apollin and Tervagant to create a sort of anti-trinity, and also with other bizarre deities, such as Nero, Margot, Baratron, Jouvencel and others, reinforcing the Christian notion of the idolatrous nature of the Saracens.⁵⁵ In these epics, the god Muhammad is frequently invoked by his acolytes, witnesses oaths, and is consulted as an oracle—unless the Saracens are defeated, upon which his idol is thrown to dogs and pigs. Muhammad’s name is shortened and invoked through variants such as Mahum, Mahon, and Mahound.⁵⁶ He is repeatedly associated with gods whose names recall Greco-Roman deities and historical figures, characters of Jewish history, and other deities of obscure and fantastic origins. These fantastic and fictitious names reinforce the fact that the god Muhammad is not the god of the Saracens at all, but rather he is a fabrication imagined in the Chansons de geste, the god of a generic non-Christian population.⁵⁷ The literary image of Muhammad as the idol-god of the Saracens propagated by Chansons de geste is given visual form in many surviving manuscript illuminations,⁵⁸

53 For a different analysis of these verses see Tolan, Saracens, 119–120. For a visual rendering of the statue of Muhammad as the Antichrist, see: Michelina Di Cesare, “Reading the Bible through Glass: The Image of Muhammad in the Sainte-Chapelle,” in Gruber and Shalem, The Image of the Prophet. 54 See, for example, the passages in the Chansons de geste concerning this image in C. Meredith Jones, “The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste,” Speculum 17 (1942), 201–225, and 214, n. 1 and 2. 55 For other names which appear, see Meredith Jones, “The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste,” 208; Pellat and Pellat, “L’idée de Dieu chez les “Sarracins,” 5–42; James Bellamy, “Arabic names in the Chanson de Roland: Saracen Gods, Frankish Swords, Roland’s Horse, and the Oliphant,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (1987), 267–277. 56 William Comfort has observed, “It seems that they were not always quite clear as to what they meant by the name of Mahomet”. See William Wistar Comfort, “The literary role of the Saracens in French Epic,” in PMLA 55.3 (1940), 628–659. 57 On the problem of the paganism of the Saracens, see Paul Bancourt, Les musulmans dans les chansons de geste du cycle du roi (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1982), 341–570; Norman Daniel, Heroes and Saracens: an Interpretation of the Chansons de Geste (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984); Jean Flori, “La caricature de l’islam dans l’Occident médiéval. Origine et signification de quelques stéréotypes concernant l’islam,” in Jean Flori, Croisade et chevalerie: XIe–XIIe siècles (Paris and Bruxelles: De Boeck Université 1998), 163–178; Tolan, Saracens, 105–134. 58 See Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-making in Medieval Art (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 129–164.

30 

 The Prophet in the Book

although it can be difficult to identify the image of the god Muhammad among the many other idols attributed to the Saracens. For this reason the present discussion is restricted to images where the adjacent text clearly refers to Muhammad or a variant of the name Muhammad is clearly written next to the image to identify its subject. An engaging depiction of the god Muhammad can be found on fol. 187v of ms. fr. 786, now preserved in Paris in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (fig. 5).⁵⁹ The manuscript contains a miscellany of chansons de geste, copied in either Artois or Hainaut in the fourth quarter of the thirteenth century. The image of Muhammad appears at the beginning of the twenty-fourth laisse of the fifth chant of the Chanson d’Antioche, within an historiated initial at the commencement of the word Mahoumes. The letter is shaped in form of a double arch. Three Saracen kings are depicted in the left arch of the letter M, wearing golden crowns over white turbans. They kneel reverently in front of a golden idol positioned opposite them, under the adjoining arch on the right side. Although the idol is heavily damaged, it is likely that it was originally decorated with gold leaf and was later violently scratched out by a reader, outraged by the apparently idolatrous practices of the Muslims.⁶⁰ However, vestiges of the painted idol suggest that it has a human shape and a relatively short tail. The idol stands on a thin column and is clearly raised higher than the other figures in the scene. Two figures appear just behind the idol, one of whom raises his hand, intending to hit the idol with his fist. According to the Chanson d’Antioche, the figure is probably the character Sansadoines, who was sent by the governor of the besieged city of Antioch to Persia, in order to ask for military aid. Shocked by the devotion of the Persian kings to the powerless idol of Muhammad, he smashed it. Unfortunately, the other figure accompanying Sansadoines in the scene cannot be clearly identified. The summary of the laisse written in red ink directly above the illuminated letter reads: Ci dist si com li paien ofroient a Mahommet, qui en haut estoit assis, or et argent, (“Here is told that the Pagans offer gold and silver to Muhammad who stands in a high place”), and the same scene is described in detail in the subsequent verses of the Chanson d’Antioche. In conclusion, Christian medieval authors dealing with Islam in their writings, focused on the figure of its founder as the code to decipher its false and deceitful nature, according to their hermeneutical categories.⁶¹ Muhammad was then inserted into a literary system, which shaped his figure into three main literary images: the

59 Geoffrey M. Myers, “The Manuscripts of the Cycle,” in La naissance du Chevalier au Cygne. Vol. 1 of The Old French Crusader Cycle, ed. Geoffrey M. Myers, Emanuel J. Mickel, and Jan Nelson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975), xiii–lxvi, esp. xxvii–xxx. 60 On scratched and defaced images, see Gil Bartholeyns, Pierre-Olivier Dittmar, and Vincent Jolivet, “Des raisons de détruir une image,” Images re-vues. Histoire, anthropologie et théorie de l’art 2 (2006), www.imagesre-vues.org. 61 On this topic and the relationships between perception and representations of the figure of the Prophet in Medieval Latin writings see: Michelina Di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), Introduction.

Images of Muhammad in Western Medieval Book Culture 

Fig. 5: “Sansadoine frappant la statue de Mahomet (Sansadoin destroying the statue of Muhammad)” Chanson d’Antioche, 1275–1300, Ms. fr. 786, fol. 187v, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

 31

32 

 The Prophet in the Book

pseudo-historical Muhammad, belonging to texts concerned with the disclosure of the “true” nature of Islam; the legendary Muhammad, belonging to texts aimed to edify the audience through entertainment; and the god Muhammad, belonging to texts aimed to justify and encourage the Crusades. Each of these literary images produced corresponding iconography, through which the new historical and theological identity of Muhammad could be impressed upon the eye of the Christian beholder.

Encountering the Body of Muhammad Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives, the Shaqq al-Sadr, and the Divina Commedia in the Age before Print (c. 1300–1500)* Heather Coffey The circulation and subsequent illustration of Dante’s Divina Commedia provided a singular opportunity for the formation of a new iconographic type of the Prophet Muhammad. Eschewing contemporary modes of representation operative in previous literary texts, images of Muhammad in manuscripts of the Inferno lack any religious, cultural or ethnographic signifier that clearly differentiate him from surrounding painted figures, revelling solely in the gruesome act of dismemberment described in the poem. In their depictions of Canto XXVIII, illustrated fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury manuscripts of Dante’s poem adhere fairly closely to the text, underscoring the lack of any single prescribed iconographic formula for the depiction of the Prophet within European medieval and Renaissance art. Extant wall paintings inspired by Dante’s opus, such as Buonamico Buffalmacco’s depiction of hell in the Camposanto in Pisa (c. 1336–41), and Giovanni da Modena’s version of hell in the Bolognini chapel of San Petronio in Bologna (c. 1410–15), governed less strictly by the text, relegate the evisceration to an adjacent figure, and augment the identification of Muhammad through an inscription. A cross-medial analysis of these images thus demonstrates how Dante’s text served as a sustained model for the formation of a distinct iconography of the Prophet, itself bearing resonance with Islamic literary traditions. Compellingly, the splitting open of the Prophet’s upper body in Dante’s text and subsequent images can be read as a conspicuous inversion of the traditionally pious characterization of Muhammad as found in Islamic narratives of the shaqq al-sadr (the ‘splitting of the chest’). Islamic texts narrate how angels sent by God opened Muhammad’s chest and removed and purified his heart in preparation for his reception of the Qur’an, his prophetic mission, and/or his heavenly ascension (mi‘raj). Such tales raise provocative questions regarding Dante’s knowledge of translated Islamic texts circulating among Italian scholars. The shaqq al-sadr episode within

* I would like to extend my gratitude to many individuals for their invaluable support while preparing this text. I would like to thank Avinoam Shalem for actively encouraging me to pursue research on this theme. I would additionally like to thank both Michelina Di Cesare and Alberto Saviello for offering me the benefit of their combined knowledge of literary and printed images of the Prophet Muhammad when contemplating his visualization through numerous invigorating discussions. I also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Christiane Gruber, Elisa Brilli, Ashley Jones, and Diane Reilly in equal measure, all of whom offered generous and oftentimes witty advice and criticism of the text in its nascent stage.

34 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Islamic oral and literary traditions symbolizes and emphasizes Muhammad’s initiation into prophecy and exclusive selection by God, whereas the evisceration of the Prophet within Dante’s theological allegory functions as poetic punishment for his perceived heretical acts and rupture of the Christian community. These two “splitting of the chest” episodes, constructed in parallel and potentially intersecting literary spheres, should rightfully be understood as manifestations of larger theological disputes regarding the authority of the Prophet Muhammad expressed through a visceral corporeal metaphor.

Muhammad in the Commedia Muhammad appears in Dante’s text in the ninth bolgia of the eighth circle of hell, Malebolge. The opening lines of the canto immediately characterize the pit as an arena of corporeal mutilation through the invocation of four battles, two ancient and two modern (Inf. 28.7–21): the triumph of the “Trojans,” that is, of the Romans, as descendents of Aeneas, during the Samnite wars in south and central Italy in the late 4th and early 3rd centuries B.C.; the defeat of the Romans by the Carthaginians at Cannae in 216 B.C.; the triumph of the Normans over the Saracens in 1070; and the victories of Charles of Anjou over Manfred, and then Conradin, in 1266 and 1268. All of these atrocities, the reader is told, “would be nothing compared to the ninth pit’s filth,” and the human butchery there witnessed (Inf. 28.21). Condemned as one of the sowers of schism and scandal who threatened Christian solidarity through his promulgation of heretical doctrines, Muhammad’s punishment for this transgression is to suffer the repeated cleaving of his chest so that his entrails spill forward grotesquely.¹ This atrocious injury heals upon every completed rotation around the bolgia, only to be re-opened by a sword-wielding demon. As the dominant protagonist of the Canto, the anguished Muhammad addresses Virgil and Dante directly:

1 This chapter will consider only Muhammad’s appearance in Canto XXVIII, where his representation is unequivocal through the character’s direct reference to himself as “Maometto”. I have omitted from my discussion passages such as Purgatorio 32.130–35, which was considered by many commentators to be an allusion to the Prophet. Paula Locatin, for example, notes “…è certo l’opinione condivisa dalla maggior parte degli antichi commentatori dei versi danteschi che nel corso di due secoli, a partire da Iacopo Alighieri (1322) fino a Cristoforo Landino (1481), colmarono il silenzio di Dante raccogliendo nelle chiose a Inf. XXVIII, 22–31, o a Purg. XXXII, 130–135, ove identificarono in Maometto il “drago che per lo carro sù la coda fisse,” un gran quantità di notizie relative all’Islam e al suo fondatore”. See Paula Locatin, “Maometto negli Antichi Commenti alla Commedia,” L’Alighieri 20 (2002), 42.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 35

Già veggia, per mezzul perdere o lulla com’io vidi un, così non si pertugia rotto dal mento infin dove si trulla. Tra le gambe pendevan le minugia la corata pareva e ’l tristo sacco che merda fa di quel che si trangugia. Mentre che tutto in lui veder m’attacco guardommi e con le man s’aperse il petto dicendo: “Or vedi com’io mi dilacco! Vedi come storpiato è Mäometto! Dinanzi a me sen va piangendo Alì fesso nel volto dal mento al ciuffetto. E tutti li altri che tu vedi qui, seminator di scandalo e di scisma, fuor vivi, e però son fessi così. [Surely a barrel, losing centerpiece or half-moon, is not so broken as one I saw torn open from the chin to the farting-place Between his legs dangled the intestines; the pluck was visible, and the wretched bag that makes shit of what is swallowed. While I was all absorbed in the sight of him, he, gazing back at me, with his hands opened up his breast, saying: “Now see how I spread myself! See how Muhammed is torn open! Ahead of me Ali goes weeping, his face cloven from chin to forelock. And all the others you see here were sowers of scandal and schism while they were alive, and therefore are they cloven in this way.] (Inf. 28.22–36)²

2 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Vol. 1, Inferno, trans. Robert M. Durling, with introduction and notes by Ronald L. Martinez and Robert M. Durling (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 432–35.

36 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Dante’s defamatory description of Muhammad emphasizes his shattered, splintered body. His body is cleaved in two and ripped open with a physical violence indicative of divine retribution. The other souls who appear in the canto suffer diverse disfigurements. One of the most memorable is that of Bertran de Born, who takes the form of a headless body that shuffles around the perimeter of the pit among the throng, holding his severed head by the hair before him. Bertran’s punishment evokes his damning role in instigating political schism at the English court of Henry II (r. 1154– 89), by encouraging the young king Henry Plantagenet—crowned in anticipation of his future rule during his father’s reign in 1170—to actively rebel against his father in 1173–74.³ The canto explains that “[b]ecause I [Bertran] divided persons so conjoined, I carry my brain divided, alas, from its origin which is in this trunk.” (“Perch’io parti’ così giunte persone, partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso!” Inf. 28.139–40). The suspended head challenges Dante to stare at his dismemberment, crying “Now see my wretched punishment, you who go still breathing to view the dead: see if any is great as this” (“...Or vedi la pena molesta, tu che, spirando, vai veggendo i morti: vedi s’alcuna è grande come questa” Inf. 28:130–32).⁴ Bertran’s speech, which closes Canto XXVIII, ends by evoking the principle that determines appropriate punishment, in his statement, “Thus you observe in me the counter-suffering” (“Cosi s’osserva in me lo contrapasso,” Inf. 28:142).⁵ Whereas the human butchery endemic to combat and crusade is randomly enacted, this particular phrase accentuates the individualized nature of each injury recounted in the canto. The term ‘contrapasso’ translated from the Latin contrapassum and the Greek tò antipeponthòn derives from a term used in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethis, understood to indicate an appropriate retribution, akin to the Latin expression lex talionis (‘the law of retaliation’).⁶ Immortalized in Dante’s poem as a schismatic, Muhammad is therefore directly cloven into two parts, destroying the integrity of his physical body in a figurative or poetic representation of the divisive effects of the revelations he received on the communal body of Christendom. The peculiar nature of his condemnation hinges upon

3 The coronation of Henry as a secondary monarch, subordinate to his father, reflects a practice adopted by the Capetian monarchy, and was not itself an act of rebellion. The foundational article addressing anticipatory coronation remains Andrew W. Lewis, “Anticipatory Association of the Heir in Early Capetian France,” American Historical Review LXXXIII (1978), 906–927. See also Valter Leonardo Puccetti, Un fantasma letterario. Il “Re giovane” del Novellino (Bologna: CLUEB, 2008). 4 Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 438–39. 5 Ibid. 6 See Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, 5.5.1132b. The term was also used by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologica, 2a 2ae, q. 61, a. 4: “I answer that counter-suffering [contrapassum] denotes equal suffering repaid for previous action…this kind of justice is laid down in the Law (Ex. 21.23, 24): ‘He shall render life for life, an eye for eye.’” The principle also arises in Deut. 19.21, Lev. 24.20, and Matt. 5.38 and 7.2. Ibid, 448. Valerio Lucchesi has crafted a complex counter argument to Dante’s understanding of the term. See Valerio Lucchesi, “Giustizia divina e linguaggio umano: metafore e polisemie del contrapasso dantesco,” Studi Danteschi 63 (1991), 53–126.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 37

the total rejection of any recognition of Islam as an independent, monotheistic faith, and he as its definitive Prophet. Islam is understood within Dante’s cosmography as an aberrant or deviant form of Christianity, and commentators on the Commedia, ranging from Jacopo Alighieri (1322) to Cristoforo Landino (1481), charge Muhammad with the slander of “imposter,” “apostate,” or “heretic”. Many of them even reiterate the widespread legend that Muhammad was a frustrated cardinal who, having failed to be elected Pope, founded his own rival sect.⁷ The symbolic nature of Muhammad’s punishment is enhanced by the fact that the term contrapasso appears only on this one occasion in the entirety of the Commedia.⁸

The Enduring Controversy The possible influence of Islam on Dante has been something of a cause célèbre in the past decade.⁹ This is not a new scholarly compulsion; investigations concerning the possible influence of non-European texts on Dante’s poem were already under-

7 Maria Esposito Frank, “Dante’s Muhammad: Parallels between Islam and Arianism,” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 193. See also Alessandro d’Ancona, “La leggenda di Maometto in Occidente,” in Studi di critica e storia letteraria, vol. 2 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1912), 208–215; Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 83. Some of the most original research of this tenor can be found in Valerio Cappozzo, “Libri dei sogni e geomanzia: la loro applicazione letteraria tra Islam, medioevo romanzo e Dante,” in Sogni e visioni nel mondo indomediterraneo. Dreams and Visions in the Indo-Mediterranean World, ed. Daniela Boccassini. Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei 2 (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2009), 207–226. I would like to express my gratitude to Valerio Cappozzo for many insightful discussions concerning multiple facets of Dante’s Inferno. 8 Lecturae of canto XXVIII worthy of consultation include: Paola Allegretti, “Canto XXVIII,” Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Inferno, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2000), 393–406; Vincenzo Crescini, “Il canto XXVIII dell’Inferno,” Letture dantesche, ed. Giovanni Getto (Florence: Sansoni, 1971), 549–64; Enzo Esposito, Canto XXVIII dell’Inferno (Naples: Loffredo, 1985); Mario Fubini, “Canto XXVIII,” Lectura Dantis Scaligera: Inferno, ed. Mario Marcazzan (Florence: Le Monnier, 1967), 999–1021; Francesco Gabrieli, “Inferno XXVIII,” Letture e divagazioni dantesche (Bari: Edizioni del centro librario, 1965), 17–30; Anna Maria Chiavacchi Leonardi, “Il canto XXVIII dell’Inferno,” L’Alighieri, n.s., 1–2 (1993), 41–57; Giovanni Nicolai, “Il canto delle ‘ombre triste smozzicate,’” Letture dell’“Inferno” ed. Vittorio Vettori (Milan: Marzorati, 1963), 230–55; and Thomas Peterson, “Canto XXVIII: Scandal and Schism,” Lectura Dantis: Inferno, ed. Allen Mandelbaum, Anthony Oldcorn, and Charles Ross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 368–377. Cited by Karla Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 220, n. 5. 9 A trend represented, for example, by publications such as Jan M. Ziolkowski, ed. “Dante and Islam,” special issue, Dante Studies 125 (2007) and Giovanni Curatola, ed. Dante e l’Islam: Incontri di civiltà. Milan: Biblioteca di Via Senato Edizioni, 2010, the catalog of an exhibition held at the Biblioteca di via Senato, in Milan, from November 4 to March 27, 2011.

38 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

way in the late nineteenth century.¹⁰ At stake when assessing the influence of Islamic texts upon and/or the reflection of Islamic eschatological thought in Dante’s Divina Commedia is the perceived degree of literary and theological exchange between the Christian and Islamic worlds in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To prove that Dante drew directly—intentionally or unintentionally—from a definitively Arabic text when composing his imagined cosmography would instantly reposition the Commedia as a paradigmatic exemplar, and proof, of heightened cross- and intercultural relations, creating a seismic fracture in long-standing perceptions of the medieval world, prompting its reconceptualization and reconfiguration. The publication of Miguel Asín Palacios’s Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Muslim Eschatology in the Divine Comedy) in 1919, just short of the six-hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death, instigated a long-standing controversy that continues to frame current scholarly inquiry. In earlier publications, Asín Palacios had posited not only that Dante was influenced by the Neoplatonic mysticism of the philosopher Ibn Masarra, albeit filtered through Christian texts, but that the ascent of Dante and Beatrice in the Paradiso evoked the mystical ascension of the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi (1165–1240).¹¹ His critically important insight was that the prototype for Ibn ‘Arabi’s mystical experience was none other than the tale of the Prophet’s mi‘raj.¹² The literary tradition of the Prophet’s mi‘raj emerged gradually from a few oblique references in the Qur’an. Pivotal among these are Qur’an 17:1 and 53:4–8, which together suggest that the Prophet experienced some sort of voyage along both horizontal and vertical axes, which culminated in a moment of divine revelation. Qur’an 17:1 describes Muhammad’s night journey (isra’) from the sacred mosque in

10 For example, Edgar Blochet’s Les Sources Orientales de la Divine Comédie (Paris: J. Maisonneuve, 1901) posited that the ultimate source of the legend that served as the foundation of the Divina Commedia was the Arda Viraf, which was written in Pahlavi under the Sasanian dynasty, and which, he argued, was propelled through Byzantium into Northern Europe along trade routes and intellectual and diplomatic exchanges between courts, ultimately depositing a vein of Persian eschatology in medieval texts such as the visions of St. Paul, St. Patricius and others, which were themselves available to Dante. In fact, the notion that Dante’s poem may owe part of its composition to the influence of Arabic sources was first suggested in the late eighteenth century by the Jesuit Juan (or Giovanni) Andrés, Dell’origine, progressi e stato attuale d’ogni letturatura (Parma, 1782–98), reprinted in Spanish as Del origen, progresos y estado actual de toda la literature (Madrid: A. de Sancha, 1784– 1806). Cited in Vicente Cantarino, “Dante and Islam: History and Analysis of a Controversy,” Dante Studies 25 (2007), 38. 11 Cantarino, “Dante and Islam,” 40. See Miguel Asín Palacios, Abenmasarra y su escuela: Orígenes de la filosofia hispano-musulmana (Madrid: Maestre, 1914), 160ff. Reprinted in Obras escogidas, vol. 1, Ibn Masarra y su escuela, El Místico Abu-l-‘Abbas ibn al-‘Arif de Almería y su “Mahasin al-Mayalis,” Un Precursor hispano-musulmán de San Juan de la Cruz (Madrid: Escuelas de Estudios Arabes de Madrid y Granada, 1946–48), 158. Cited in Cantarino, “Dante and Islam,” 51, n. 23. 12 James Morris, “The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn ‘Arabi and the Mi‘raj, Part I,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (1987), 629–652; and idem, “The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn ‘Arabi and the Mi‘raj, Part II,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 108 (1988), 63–77.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 39

Mecca to the ‘furthest mosque’ (al-masjid al-aqsa), a location most frequently interpreted to mean Jerusalem or, more specifically, the al-Aqsa Mosque.¹³ Additionally, the Qur’anic passage 53:4–8 speaks to how Muhammad “reached the highest pinnacle” and “He [God] revealed to his servant what he revealed.”¹⁴ Although the earliest Muslim biographers and commentators interpreted these passages as two distinct events, the creation of a “seamless isra’-mi‘raj narrative,” wherein Muhammad commences his earthly journey from Mecca and his subsequent celestial ascension from Jerusalem, was widespread by the Abbasid period (750–1258).¹⁵ The term mi‘raj is, however, noticeably absent from the earliest accounts. Its appearance in subsequent texts is indicative of the development of a corpus of extended ascension narratives, popularized through both oral tales and written texts, in which the two Qur’anic episodes were knitted together and embellished through the incremental addition of narrative episodes. This process of narrative expansion is already observable in the eighth century in Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 768) Sirat al-Nabi (Biography of the Prophet). In Ibn Ishaq’s text, the Qur’anic allusion to Muhammad’s journey to the ‘furthest mosque’ is definitively connected to the sacred sanctuary in Jerusalem (Aelia, that is, al-Quds). Furthermore, the eschatological potential of these Qur’anic passages is exploited: Ibn Ishaq recounts how Muhammad not only travels up into the heavens—encountering earlier prophets and angels along the way—but also briefly witnesses the gruesome punishments of the denizens of hell.¹⁶ In so doing, Ibn Ishaq’s text functions as a sort of biographical apocalypse that both affirms Muhammad’s prophetic status and reveals the complex structure of the afterlife. Prophetic biographies, exegetical works, universal histories, mystical poetry and the transmission of hadith also engendered the inclusion of ever more elaborate and

13 Qur’an 17:1 reads: “Glory (subhan) to Him who made His servant travel (asra) by night from the Sacred Mosque (al-masjid al-haram) to the farthest place of worship (al-masjid al-aqsa), whose precincts We have blessed, in order that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He hears and sees (all things).” All Qur’anic translations are taken from Ahmed Ali, al-Qur’ān, 5th edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. For a comprehensive discussion of the interpretive issues surrounding the term al-Masjid al-Aqsa, see Heribert Busse, “Jerusalem in the Story of Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 14 (1991), 1–40. 14 Qur’an 53:4–18 reads: “So he acquired poise and balance, and reached the highest pinnacle. Then he drew near and drew closer until a space of two arcs (qab qawsayn) or even less remained, when He revealed to His servant what He revealed. His heart did not falsify what he perceived. Will you dispute with him what he saw? He saw Him indeed another time by the Lote Tree of the Limit (sidrat al-muntaha) beyond which no one can pass, close to which is the Garden of Tranquility, when the Lote Tree of the Limit was covered over with what it was covered over; neither did sight falter nor exceed the bounds. Indeed he saw some of the greatest signs of the Lord.” 15 Christiane Gruber, The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension: A Persian-Sunni Prayer Manual (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2009), 1–2. 16 ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Hisham. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq’s Sirat rasul Allah, with introduction and notes by Alfred Guillaume (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 181–187.

40 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

idiosyncratic details concerning the geography of the heavenly and infernal realms. The formation of a corpus of mi‘raj narratives took place most especially from the tenth to the thirteenth century. At this time, various versions of the “Book of Ascension”—entitled Kitab al-Mi‘raj (Arabic) and Mi‘rajnama (Persian)—produced a distinct literary corpus encompassing a rich assortment of ascent narratives.¹⁷ By the time of Dante’s birth (c. 1265), texts on the Prophet’s mi‘raj served as the prime repository of eschatological imagery within Islamic literary and artistic traditions. The resemblance of the Prophet’s mi‘raj to Dante’s eschatological panorama had been pointed out by scholars preceding Asín Palacios.¹⁸ Only Asín Palacios, however, fully committed to the idea, completing an extensive study of the transmission of Islamic ascension legends in hadith and other Arabic texts available in Andalusían Spain, including those of al-Ma‘arri, al-Gazzali, and Ibn ‘Arabi. Highlighting how these texts could have migrated to the Italian peninsula, Asín Palacios offers a detailed comparison between the structure and content of the Islamic and Christian eschatological narratives, aiming to prove that an oral or written account of the Prophet’s mi‘raj must have served as the prototype to Dante’s opus. The publication of Asín Palacios’s study caused an instant uproar, particularly among Dantists, for whom “admission of such indebtedness could have been felt to lessen in one fell swoop the individual genius, Christianity and Italianness of a poet about whom they had a proprietary sense.”¹⁹ Criticisms of Asín Palacios’s theory included, among other objections, the fact that the heterogeneity of the many varied texts integral to the development of the Prophet’s mi‘raj resist a single linear trajectory; that classical, biblical and other medieval visionary literature also feature many of the parallels observable between Dante’s poem and Islamic eschatological texts; and that these parallels could have other explanations, namely their shared origin in pre-Islamic texts.²⁰ Yet the overriding criticism of Asín Palacios’s thesis was based on the glaring absence of a clear means of transmission for Islamic mi‘raj narratives to reach Dante’s milieu. Asín Palacios himself theorized several possible avenues

17 Christiane Gruber, “The Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension (Mi‘raj) in Islamic Art and Literature, ca. 1300–1600,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005), 40. 18 These include Edgar Blochet, Moritz Steinschneider, and Angelo De Fabrizio. See the discussion by Cantarino, “History and Controversy,” 38–39. 19 Jan M. Ziolkowski, “Introduction,” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 8. For an excellent summary of critical responses to Asín Palacios’ theory, see Cantarino, “Dante and Islam,” 52, n. 32. Asín Palacios himself responded to the furor surrounding his Escatalogía musulmana in 1924 in two articles, published simultaneously in Il Giornale Dantesco, Litteris, Boletin de la Real Academia Española and as “L’Influence musulmane dans la Divine Comédie: Histoire et critique d’une polémique,” in Revue de literature compare 4 (April–June 1924), 392. His response to his critics included a bibliography of approximately eighty articles annotated with short phrases such as “favourable,” “undecided,” and “adverse”. Cited by Cantarino, History and Analysis, 42 and 52, n. 33. 20 Cantarino, History and Analysis, 42.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 41

through which Dante may have become cognizant of mi‘raj narratives.²¹ However, the author’s stringent confidence in his own overarching hypothesis only made the problem of identifying a plausible means of transmission all the more evident. This could have involved the circulation of full or partial texts in Arabic, Persian, or Turkish throughout European centers, for example, full or partial textual translations into one or more European languages, an oral tradition, or some combination of the above. It seemed that the problem of textual transmission was solved in 1949, when previously unknown editions of Latin and French translations of an ascension narrative, respectively titled Liber Scale Machometi and Le livre de l’eschiele de Mahomet (The Book of Muhammad’s Ladder), were published independently by Enrico Cerulli and José Muñoz Sendino.²² Both texts are the result of scholarly activity instigated by Alfonso X of Castile (r. 1252–84), who commissioned the translation of numerous Arabic materials into Castilian, particularly astronomical and scientific treatises during his reign.²³ Therefore, both texts describe a version of Muhammad’s mi‘raj in which the Prophet enters heaven not on the back of the winged steed Buraq, his most common means of ascension, but by climbing a ladder. In addition to providing evidence of a mi‘raj narrative in circulation throughout thirteenth-century Castile and León, the localization of these texts to Alfonso’s royal scriptorium offered a possible context for the transmission of the text to Dante’s Italy. An ascension narrative was first translated by Alfonso’s Jewish physician, Abraham of Toledo, possibly through the compilation of a variety of Arabic sources to produce a composite text in Castil-

21 Miguel Asín Palacios, Dante e l’Islam: Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Comedia, trans. Roberto Rossi Testa and Younis Tawfik (Milan: Il Saggiatore, S.P.A. 2005), section IV, 349–412, esp. 365–377. Note that the phrase “Dante e l’Islam” was added to the title in this edition only; the original title remains Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Commedia. 22 Enrico Cerulli ed., Il “Libro della scala” e la question delle fonti arabo-spagnole delle Divina Commedia. Studi e testi 150, Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1949, followed by Nuove ricerche sul Libro della scala e la conoscenza dell’Islam in Occidente, Studi e testi 271 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1972), and José Muñoz Sendino, La Escala de Mahoma: Traducción del árabe al castellano, latín y francés ordenada por Alfonso X el Sabio (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales, 1949). As Mari Corti rightfully notes, the text was not discovered by Cerulli, but by Ugo Monneret de Villard, who mentioned it in his study entitled Lo studio dell’Islam in Europa nel XII e nel XIII secolo, Studi e testi 110, (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944). Maria Corti, “Dante and Islamic Culture,” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 66 and 75, n. 29. 23 Although Corti, following Menéndez Pidal, claims that the original Arabic text was first composed in the eighth century, a slightly later date remains plausible. See Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, “Como trabajaron las escuelas Alfonsies,” Nueva revista de filologia hispánica 5 (1951), 363–380. Cited by Corti, “Dante and Islam,” 66. For a discussion concerning the translation of Arabic sources at the court of Alfonso X, see See Joseph O’Callaghan, The Learned King: the Reign of Alfonso X of Castile (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 141–144.

42 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

ian.²⁴ This Castilian text was then translated into Latin circa 1264 by the exiled Tuscan Bonaventure da Siena.²⁵ Bonaventure’s Latin text was itself translated into Old French in approximately the same year.²⁶ The date of these translations is particularly noteworthy given that Brunetto Latini served as the official Florentine ambassador to the Alfonsine court in Toledo between 1259 and 1260, and therefore could have served as a conduit for the transference of a mi‘raj narrative to central Italy.²⁷ Naturally, there can be no conclusive assessment of whether Dante was familiar with any renditions of these translations of an Islamic ascension narrative.²⁸ However, new evidence has increased the probability of a link between the two texts. Amidst discussion of various correspondences between the seventh, eighth, and ninth bolgias of the Commedia and the fourth and fifth terraces of hell in Bonaventure’s Latin translation, Maria Corti observed that the words composing Muhammad’s lamentation to Dante and Virgil plainly mirror, or play upon, those spoken by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. In the Liber Scale Machometi, Gabriel warns Muhammad about those “who sow words to cause discord among people” (qui verba seminant ut mittant discordiam inter gentes, par. 199).²⁹ In the Inferno, Muhammad explains that all the souls inhabiting the ninth bolgia “sowed scandal and schism while they lived”

24 Isabelle Heullant-Donat and Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, “Histoire d’une traduction,” in Le Livre de l’Êchelle de Mahomet (Liber Scale Machometi), trans. Gisèle Besson and Michèle Brossard-Dandré (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1991), 26. 25 Reginald Hyatte, trans. The Prophet of Islam in Old French: The Romance of Muhammad (1258) and the Book of Muhammad’s Ladder (1264) (Brill: Leiden, 1997), 21. The text of the Liber Scale Machometi is available for consultation through multiple publications in addition to the English translation completed by Hyatte. For the Latin version, please consult Le Livre de l’Échelle de Mahomet (Liber Scale Machometi), trans. Gisèle Besson and Michèle Brossard-Dandré (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1991) and also Liber Scale Machometi: die Lateinische Fassung des Kitab al-Mi‘radj, ed. Edeltraud Werner (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1986); to compare the Latin, Castilian, and Old French translations, see José Muñoz Sendino, ed. La Escala de Mahoma: Traducción del Árabe al Castellano, Latín y Francés, Ordenada par Alfonso X el Sabio (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales, 1949). 26 The preface and colophon of the French translation purport that Bonaventure of Siena also authored this translation. It has been argued that this was more likely the effort of another scholar in the service of Alfonso X, likely of Provençal origin. Peter Wunderli, Études sur “Le livre de l’eschiele Mahomet.” Prolégomènes à une nouvelle edition de la version française d’une traduction alphonsine (Winterthur: P. G. Keller, 1965), 20–24. 27 Corti, “Dante and Islam,” 66. 28 Corti is direct in her assessment of the problem, “These thematic correspondences, given their broadly diffused presence, cannot be constrained within a discourse of direct sources but only of possible intertextuality, unless it can also be verified using the conditions listed above of a text translated into Latin or Old French, a historical context that can justify Dante’s knowledge of the work, and similarities that are not only thematic but also formal and wide-ranging enough not to be coincidental but instead to be isomorphic”. See Corti, “Dante and Islamic Culture,” 65. 29 Corti, “Dante and Islam,” 66ff, esp. 69. Cerulli, “Il Libro della Scala,” 211.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 43

(E tutti li altri che tu vedi qui, seminator di scandalo e di scisma fuor vivi… Inf. 28.35).³⁰ The exact recurrence of the verb seminare in discussions concerning religious schism in both texts strains the realm of possible coincidence, further strengthening the possibility that Dante had some knowledge of the Liber Scale Machometi. However, as decades of Dante scholarship have demonstrated, the Commedia draws on a multitude of sources. Whether Dante knew of the Liber Scale Machometi must be evaluated within the question of which texts representing Arabic literary, theological, philosophical and scientific traditions may have been available—directly or indirectly—to Dante. The treatise De causis or the Liber de causis (The Book of Causes), a Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187) of an earlier, likely ninthcentury, Arabic text in circulation from the 1180’s onwards, is but one example. Dante seems to have known Cremona’s text quite well. Even so, it is unlikely that he considered this an Arabic text, since it was widely believed to be a work of Aristotle.³¹

The Illustrated Manuscript Tradition The surviving illuminated corpus of Dante’s Divina Commedia surpasses five hundred fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts. Approximately three hundred and seventy manuscripts feature some schematic drawings, historiated initials and intermittent decorative touches. Figurative content at the opening of each cantica appears in roughly one hundred and thirty surviving codices. Sixty additional manuscripts feature a full or partial illustrated cycle of episodes depicting events as they occur in the narrative, creating an inter-play of text and image.³² Together, this mass of Dantean manuscripts attests to the poem’s rapid diffusion throughout northern and central Italy throughout the first half of the Trecento. Manuscripts, whether illumi-

30 Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 434–435. 31 See, for example, Vincent Cantarino, “Dante and Islam: Theory of Light in the Paradiso,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 15 (1968), 3–35 and Rocco Murari, “Il De causis e la sua fortuna nel Medio Evo,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 34 (1899), 93–117. Cited by Ziolkowski, “Introduction,” 25, and 34, n. 82 and 83. 32 Rachel Owen, “The Image of Dante, Poet and Pilgrim,” in Dante on View: The Reception of Dante in the Visual and Performing Arts, ed. Antonella Braida and Luisa Calé (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 83. For further consideration of the interplay of text and image in illustrated manuscripts of the Commedia, see Lucia Battaglia Ricci, “Ai margini del testo: considerazioni sulla tradizione del ‘Dante illustrato,’” Italianistica: rivistia di letteratura italiana 38:2 (2009), 39–58; eadem, “Il commento illustrato alla “Commedia”: schede di iconografia trecentesca,” in “Per correr miglior acque...”. Bilanci e prospettive degli studi danteschi alle soglie del nuovo millennio: Atti del Convegno di Verona-Ravenna, 25–29 ottobre, 1999, (Rome: Salerno, 2001), 601–640; eadem, “Testo e immagini in alcuni manoscritti illustrati della “Commedia”: le pagine d’apertura,” in Studi offerti a Luigi Blasucci dai colleghi e dagli allievi pisani, ed. Lucio Lugnani, Marco Santagata, and Alfredo Stussi (Lucca: M. P. Fazzi, 1996), 23–50.

44 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

nated or not, were merely one form in which the text was diffused; the other critically important source of the poem’s immediate renown was its decisively oral/aural character. This is signaled by the very name and structure of the poem: its title as a commedia means ‘rustic song,’ a point signified by its subdivision into canti (singular canto), meaning ‘chant’ or ‘song’.³³ Giovanni Villani’s writings suggest that around 1339, only seven-and-a-half to ten percent of Florence’s population learned to read high level Latin in cathedral schools,³⁴ underscoring the fact that only a small portion of the population would have had direct access to the many commentaries in Latin, in addition to those written in the vernacular, that survive from the Trecento and Quattrocento. Access to written texts of Dante’s poem was also restricted to those of a certain class: a much larger audience would have heard the poem read aloud in seriated parts, or expounded upon in public orations, perhaps learning portions of the poems by heart and reciting favorite verses. Indeed, numerous anecdotes attest to the fact that Dante’s text permeated across social classes. Already in approximately 1318–19 the poet was admonished by Giovanni del Virgillio, the Bolognese professor of rhetoric, for writing the poem in the vernacular and thus making it accessible to illiterates (gens ydiota) rather than composing it for an erudite, Latin-schooled audience.³⁵ Later, in a letter written to Boccaccio and dated 1359, Petrach asserted that the ‘ignorant’ (idiotae) knew the poem, joking that he did not envy Dante “the applause and hoarse murmurings of dyers, drapers, shopkeepers, thugs and their ilk.”³⁶ A tradition of public recitation

33 John Ahern, “Singing the Book: Orality in the Reception of Dante’s Comedy,” in Dante: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Amilcare A. Iannuci (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 228. See also Justin Steinberg, Accounting for Dante: Urban Readers and Writers in Late Medieval Italy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), and Peter Armour, “Comedy and the Origins of Italian Theatre around the Time of Dante,” in Writers and Performers in Italian Drama from the Time of Dante to Pirandello: Essays in Honour of G. H. McWilliam, ed. J. R. Dashwood and J. E. Everson (Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 1–31. On public lectures of Dante, see Christian Bec, Les marchands écrivains, affaires et humanisme à Florence (1375–1434) (Paris-La Haye: Mouton, 1967), 395 and Judith Bryce, “The Oral World of the Early Accademia Fiorentina,” Renaissance Studies 9:1 (1995), 87. 34 Giovanni Villani, Chronica, XI, 94. The interpretation of Villani’s text and the relative percentage of the Florentine population in grammar schools have been a matter of long debate. See Ahern, “Singing the Book,” 218 and n. 11. 35 Del Virgilio writes “Why will you always, alas, toss serious matters to the mob, and why shall we, pallid from study, read nothing of yours, O Bard?” (“…tanta quid heu semper iactabis seria vulgo, et nos pallentes nichil ex te vate legemus?”). Cited in Ahern, “Singing the Book,” 215, following Enzo Cecchini’s text Opere Minori II, 654–6. 36 Ahern, “Singing the Book,” 215 and 230, n. 5. As Ahern notes, it has been argued that this correspondence is a forgery dating to c. 1351–55 by Rossi. Nonetheless, Billanovich and various other scholars assert its authenticity. See Aldo Rossi, “Boccaccio, autore della corrispondenza DanteGiovanni del Virgilo.” Miscellanea storica della Valdelsa 69 (1963), 130–172; but also Giudo Billanovich, “Il preumanesimo a Padova,” in Il Trecento. Vol. 2 of Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Neri Pozza,

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 45

of the poem was inaugurated in many cities: the University of Florence, for example, nominated individuals to read and/or lecture on the poem, often on feast days.³⁷ Defamatory characterizations or caricatures of the many historical figures included in Dante’s poem, including his memorable characterization of the Prophet Muhammad, thus reached a very broad audience composed of all members of society. The earliest illustrated manuscript of the Commedia to bear a clearly inscribed date was made in the Florentine scriptorium of Francesco di Ser Nardo da Barberino in 1337, sixteen years after Dante’s death.³⁸ A handful of further manuscripts likely pre-date this specimen by a few years, but do not feature inscribed dates to confirm the matter.³⁹ Among the surviving corpus of Dante manuscripts, the ninth bolgia thus does not appear in all painted cycles. Although the Prophet Muhammad is not included in all representations of the canto,⁴⁰ he appears fairly frequently, particu-

1976), 19–110, and “Lovato Lovati: l’epistola a Bellino, gli echi da Catullo,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 32 (1989), 101–153. 37 Simon A. Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 11. Rachel Owen notes that “[t]here was a tradition of the recitation of all or part of the Commedia in prominent places in Florence and in other cities on particular days of the year; Frate Antonio da Arezzo, for example, lectured on the Commedia in the Duomo in the 15th century, and Giovanni di ser Buccio da Spoleto, a member of the Siena University faculty, was under contract to read out the poem on feast days outside the church of San Vigilio in Siena. Boccaccio was also engaged by the Commune of Florence to give out public readings of the Commedia at the church of S. Stefano di Badia, Florence, which began on 23 October 1373”. See Rachel Owen, “Illuminated Manuscripts of Dante’s Commedia (1330–1490) in their Cultural and Artistic Context.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2001), 39. As Karen Elizabeth Gross explains, Boccaccio’s esteem of the Commedia went far beyond its public performance: Boccaccio authored a biography of Alighieri, the so-called Trattatello in laude di Dante (Little Treatise in Praise of Dante), between 1351–55; he transcribed the Commedia on at least three occasions; he was responsible for sending yet another copy of the Commedia to Petrarch; he copied much of the poet’s correspondence into his zibaldoni, edited Dante’s pastoral poetry; and he even interviewed members of the intellectual elite who had been privy to Dante’s acquaintance, and, purportedly, members of Dante’s own family. See Karen Elizabeth Gross, “Scholar Saints and Boccaccio’s Trattatello in laude di Dante,” Modern Language Notes 124:1 (Jan. 2009), 66–85. To access a copy of Boccaccio’s biography, see the edition prepared by Pier Giorgio Ricci, in Tutte le opera di Giovanni Boccaccio, gen. ed., Vittore Branca, vol. 3 (Milan: Mondadori, 1974), 437–496 (first redaction) and 497–538 (second redaction). 38 Milan, Biblioteca dell’Archivio Storico Civico e Trivulziana, MS 1080, 109 folios, 37 x 25.3 cm. Peter Brieger, and Millard Meiss, “Catalogue,” in Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles S. Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), vol. 1, 281. 39 The following manuscripts have all been dated to the early 1330’s: Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 1005, 187 folios, 38 × 25 cm; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Palatini 313, 237 folios, 29.8 × 21 cm; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plutei 40.35; London, British Library, MS Egerton 943, 188 folios, 99 × 64.8 cm; Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, MS AG XII 2 (AN XV 19); Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, MS AC XIII 41 (AN XV 17). Owen, The Image of Dante, 84, n. 3. 40 Although it is not possible to survey all surviving painted manuscripts of the Dante’s poem, approximately forty percent of the illuminated manuscripts assessed in the seminal study by Brieger,

46 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

larly—as one would expect—in manuscripts produced for wealthier patrons, which normally feature a greater number of painted scenes reflective of the narrative. Possibly the earliest Dantean representation of Muhammad is contained in a luxurious manuscript of the Inferno attributed to the Florentine artist Buonamico Buffalmacco and dated to c. 1327–28.⁴¹ Preserved in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France, the manuscript contains the text of the Inferno, followed by Guido da Pisa’s commentary, Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis (Explanations and Adnotations to Dante’s Commedia), the Commedia, and then his Dichiarazione poetica dell’Inferno Dantesco (Poetic Declaration on Dante’s Inferno). The presence of the coat of arms of the Spinola family three times on folio 1r and a fourth appearance of the arms on folio 31r, and numerous allusions to Lucano Spinola, affirm that this is a presentation copy prepared under the aegis of Guido as author of the commentary for his wealthy patron. The texts of all three literary works are inscribed onto expertly prepared sheets of thin vellum, and arranged in two columns, leaving ample space for the illustration of narrative episodes. An author-portrait of Dante on the first folio of the Inferno is the sole illustration to accompany the poem, while all other painted detail instead accompanies Guido’s commentary. So it is perhaps more apt to speak of an illustrated commentary to Dante’s poem, rather than of an illustrated manuscript of the Inferno per se. Eight of the fifty-one illustrations within the manuscript feature a letter inside or beside the painted images, suggesting the pictorial cycle was somewhat predetermined.⁴² If indeed these letters indicate systemic instruction, the program could have been crafted by Guido himself or another prominent scholar;⁴³ it is unlikely, given the

Meiss and Singleton include the depiction of Muhammad. See Breiger and Meiss, “Catalogue,” 209– 339. 41 Chantilly: Musée Condé, MS 597 (XX D (1) 4), 343 folios, 32 × 23 cm. To access colour reproductions of multiple folios see Teresa d’Urso, Pier Luigi Mulas, Patricia Stirnemann, and Gennaro Toscao, with a preface by François Avril, Enluminures italiennes: chefs-d’oeuvre du Musée Condé (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2000), 6–11. The date of the manuscript was understandably dependent on the dating of Guido’s commentary, which both Bruno Sankühler and Jenaro-Maclennan asserted was prior to 1333, and as early as 1327–28. See Bruno Sankühler, Die frühen Dantekommentare und ihr Verhältnis zur mittelalterlichen Kommentartradition (Munich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1967), 155–92 and Luis Jenaro Maclennan, “The Dating of Guido da Pisa’s Commentary on the Inferno,” Italian Studies XXIII (1968), 19–54. For a comprehensive synopsis of debates concerning the date of the Chantilly manuscript, see Karl Fugelso, “The Artist as Reader: Buffalmacco’s Miniatures of the Inferno,” Dante Studies 122 (2004), 138 and 161, n. 7. 42 Ibid. 43 Fugelso, “The Artist as Reader,” 138. In his seminal essay “The Smiling Pages,” Millard Meiss overtly states that Guido commissioned the manuscript, whereas Fugelso is less definitive. See Millard Meiss, “The Smiling Pages,” in Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), vol. 1, 380.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 47

extant evidence, that many luxurious manuscripts were completed previous to this which could have served as a model. Canto XXVIII is represented on folio 194v (fig. 6). The Chantilly manuscript is distinct from the few others that survive from the early Trecento in that only one unframed episode appears per folio.⁴⁴ Dante’s and Virgil’s encounter with the sowers of schism and scandal commands the entire lower margin of the page. The two visitors to hell stand to the left of the bolgia, which is depicted as a confined, cavernous space. The soul of Muhammad is the second nude figure of the condemned from the left, identifiable by the punishment he receives: a long vertical gash extends downwards from the base of his throat, widening from the weight of the internal organs that pour forth, such as the stomach and the lower intestines, darkened by its foul contents. Muhammad’s pose is fairly static, suggesting a cordial or even courtly demeanor, and his facial expression is relaxed, even smiling slightly, which is at odds with his anguished description of his wounds to Dante (Inf. 28.28–31). Ali, cleaved open from the crown of his head to his chin, appears beside Dante, turning towards him, a pictorial device that captures the rotation of the souls around the perimeter of the bolgia. Neither is there any urgent lamentation upon Ali’s face, although the text describes his acute distress. The souls depicted to the right of Dante refer to Inf. 28.64–69⁴⁵ and endure their various injuries: the first, whose throat is gashed open and nose sliced off, raises his hand to cover a third wound, a severed ear; the second, his windpipe opened and severed, gasps, struggling to suck breath into his mouth but, the text explains, nonetheless identifies himself as Pier da Medicina; while the last soul is unequivocally Bertran de Born, who holds his head aloft before him. The uniform depiction of the souls is immediately apparent. The artist has refrained from modifying Muhammad’s appearance to distinguish him from other souls through the inclusion of slanderous physiognomic details or the symbolic attributes indicative of his prophethood that accompany his depiction in numerous other twelfth- to fifteenth-century manuscripts.⁴⁶ His flailing intestines and bloodied, fractured body—the specific injury accorded to him by the principle of contrapasso— serve as his identifying feature, functioning as his attribute. The degree to which the visual identification of Muhammad is functionally dependant upon his evisceration in Dantean illustrations is demonstrated by a surprising image found in a manuscript of the Inferno preserved in the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena.⁴⁷ Little is known about the manuscript, which is commonly

44 Brieger and Meiss, “Catalogue,” 282. 45 “Un altro, che forato avea la gola e tronco ’l naso infin sotto le ciglia, e non avea mai ch’una orecchia sola, ristato a riguardar per maraviglia con li altri, innanzi a l’altri aprì la canna, ch’era di fuor d’ogne parte vermiglia…” Martinez and Durling, Inferno, 435. 46 Please see the chapter by Michelina Di Cesare in this volume. 47 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS α R.4.8. (It. 474; VIII.G.6), 140 folios, 36 × 24 cm.

48 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Fig. 6: Buonamico Buffalmacco, “The Sowers of Schism and Scandal,” Dante Alighieri, Inferno, c. 1327–28, 32 × 23 cm, MS 597 (XX D (1) 4), f. 194v, Chantilly, Musée Condé.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 49

attributed to the fifteenth century and considered of Emilian provenance, possibly produced and illustrated in Bologna.⁴⁸ The transcription of Canto XXVIII occupies several folios and is accompanied by two consecutive images incorporated into the upper margin above the text. In the image gracing folio 38v, Dante and Virgil stand on a rocky crest to the left of the pit, which contains five figures (fig. 7). The demon charged with the repetitive infliction of their wounds stands on the far side of the bolgia, imagined by the artist as a winged creature with pointy ears and a tail. It stands at the ready with its sword held aloft. All but one of the figures (of which only the head is visible) is rent open along the chest and abdomen. The edges of sagging flesh are painted a deep scarlet while the innards distend forward, the coils of intestines unfurling elegantly and dangling uncontained, as explained in the verse. Yet the figures also suffer lacerations across the legs and arms, and multiple limbs have been severed completely. The facial features and expressions of the characters are also identical. It is impossible to discern if the artist simply conflated all the injuries and characters described in the canto, either out of haste or a goulish enthusiasm, or if the artist could not read the accompanying text, or else only imperfectly. Because the Prophet’s signature evisceration is repeated, the reader/viewer is unable to discern which figure is Muhammad. The second figure from the left, whose ear has been cut off, could be identified as Pier da Medicina, while the third figure, distinguished by a deep gash to the crown of his head, could be identified as Ali. Alternatively, all of the figures may be interpreted as Muhammad, shown in varying poses as he processes around the pit. Certainly, Dante’s Muhammad is a gregarious conversationalist, and it is not inconceivable that the artist was inspired to multiply his depiction. It is conspicuous that the text has been arranged so that the opening lines of Muhammad’s soliloquy to Dante and Virgil is positioned directly below the painted image: “…dicendo vedi comio midilacco / vedi come storpiato Mäometto…” (“...Now see how I spread myself! See how Maometto is torn open!...” Inf. 28.30–31).⁴⁹ The preceding image on folio 38r, positioned above the end of the preceding canto and the first twenty-nine lines of Canto XXVIII, is equally confusing. Four figures are clustered tightly together so that only two are fully visible, flanked by Dante and Virgil to one side of the bolgia, and on the other by a sword-wielding demon. It is nonetheless evident that three of the clustered figures bear the angry, vertical gash cleaving the chest that in the text is peculiar to Muhammad. Here again, the primary injury is subsumed within a panoply of mutilations. One figure, whose stomach rests on the outer curve of his lower abdomen while an intestine dangles listlessly below, looks directly out to the reader/viewer; perhaps the artist intended this to be Muhammad. Logic dictates that the figure to the right of him is again Ali, who is introduced next in the poem, despite his similar evisceration in the illustration. The artist has included a long gash along

48 Brieger and Meiss, “Catalogue,” 282–283. 49 Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 434–435.

50 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Fig. 7: Anonymous, “The Sowers of Schism and Scandal,” Dante Alighieri, Inferno, fifteenth-century, 36 × 24 cm (entire folio), MS α R.4.8, 38v, Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 51

the crown and back of the head, not, as the poem states, severing the face itself in two. Perhaps the artist had difficulty visualizing how best to depict this injury, and so moved the gouge to where it would not disrupt his rendition of the facial features. No such confusion is present in another fifteenth-century manuscript, preserved in Paris.⁵⁰ Purportedly made as a luxurious presentation copy for Filippo Maria Visconti, the manuscript includes a commentary written by Giuniforto delli Bargigi and a lengthy cycle of illustrations attributed to the work of an anonymous artist, provisionally named for the illustration of a Vitae Imperatorum written in 1431.⁵¹ The manuscript is therefore dated to approximately 1440 and was possibly produced in Pavia or Milan.⁵² The painted image accompanying Canto XXVIII on folio 313v incorporates a high degree of literalism. Virgil and Dante stand together to the right of the composition, atop a small curving bridge, and lean forward to better inspect the curious theater of mutilations displayed below (fig. 8). Muhammad is positioned directly opposite the pair and looks directly at them. He leads a parade of six figures, which processes along the outer edge of the cavernous pit, save Ali, who is depicted slightly below and in front of him. Each figure is individuated through the careful depiction of the specific corporeal punishment he suffers. Muhammad is therefore the only figure shown with his characteristic evisceration. Each hand clasps the ripped edges of flesh that delineate the bloodied slit through his chest, while his anguished cry, “Vedi come storpiato è Mäometto,” here with the variant scipiato, is written in blood adjacent to him, suspended between himself, Dante and Virgil. Here the clarity of the artist’s rendition of the scene is augmented by the inscription of his exclamation, erasing any ambiguity regarding the identification of Muhammad. Most striking is the fact that the entire composition has been effaced, violently, and potently abraded with some unknown object, obscuring the midsections of all of the figures, leaving a curious sequence of disembodied feet floating below amidst thick patches of painted blood. Although the abrasion of the folio could have added another layer of degradation to the figure of the Prophet Muhammad in particular, the fact that the majority of the images of hell in this manuscript have been similarly defaced, indicating that the motive for this attack was not linked to perceived prohibitions regarding the depiction of Muhammad. It is impossible to know how many centuries ago the erasure was enacted, or why, although it is probable that the implica-

50 This manuscript of the Inferno, accompanied by a commentary by Giuniforto delli Barigi, is preserved at two institutions: Paris, Bibliotèque nationale de France and Imola, Biblioteca Comunale. Imola, Biblioteca Comunale, MS 32, contains twenty-one folios—featuring thirteen images excised from the surrounding text—cut out from the manuscript preserved in Paris, 25 × 17 cm. Conversely, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. it. 2017, contains 381 folios (thirty folios missing, leaving nine unaccounted for), 32 × 21.5 cm. 51 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. It. 131. The artist is thus referred to as the “Vitae Imperatorum Master”. Brieger and Meiss, “Catalogue,” 318. 52 Millard Meiss, “The Smiling Pages,” 39.

52 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Fig. 8: Attributed to the Vitae Imperatorum Master, “The Sowers of Schism and Scandal,” Dante Alighieri, Inferno, c. 1440, MS. It. 2017, 313v, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 53

tion of nudity was offensive. Or, on the other hand, the objection may have responded to the very categorization of sins fundamental to the organization of Dante’s poetic vision of Inferno, so that the scratches applied to the painted surface are literally punitive in nature. The mangled surface of the folio somehow makes the multitude of injuries enumerated in the canto all the more poignant.

The Extant Wall Paintings The concrete visualization of Dante’s magnum opus enacted in the production of illuminated manuscripts was soon augmented by several monumental paintings of hell that incorporated direct references to the Commedia, and specifically the Inferno. Whereas pictorializations of the Prophet Muhammad in manuscripts containing the Inferno faithfully enact the formulaic disarticulation of his viscera described in the poem, large-scale mural renditions of Dante’s Inferno generally displace his characteristic evisceration to a nearby figure and choose not to compromise his corporeal integrity. This curious turn of events likely originates, at least in part, in the fact that these frescoed renditions are extracted from the codex format. The most faithful and complete visualization of Dante’s Inferno executed as a large-scale fresco is the painting completed in the mid to late 1350’s by Bernardo (“Nardo”) di Cione (c.  1320–1365/66), the brother of Andrea di Cione (also known as Orcagna), in the Strozzi di Mantova Chapel in Santa Maria Novella.⁵³ Although the fresco was highly damaged by the floodwaters that struck Florence in 1966, inhibiting close study of several portions, it is clear that Nardo’s composition translates Dante’s poem into pictorial form nearly “canto-by-canto.”⁵⁴ The pictorial narrative moves from left to right and from top to bottom across the painted surface until the viewer arrives at Canto XII, at which point the narrative sequence alternates from the left to the right around the rocky pit of Malebolge.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, despite the overall fidelity of the composition

53 See Richard Offner and Klara Steinweg, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, vol. II, sec. IV, “Nardo di Cione,” (New York: The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, distributed by J.J. Augustin, 1960), 54, and plate XIe. The altarpiece commissioned in 1354 by Tommaso di Rosello Strozzi for the family chapel, and completed by his brother, Andrea di Cione (Orcagna, d. 1368), bears the inscription Anni Dni MCCCLVII Andreas Cionis de Florentia me pinxit. In all probability work on the altarpiece and the surrounding fresco cycle occurred simultaneously. If the production of the altarpiece was complete in 1357, it is reasonable to assume that the execution of the fresco cycle was also in its advance stages, that is, that its production also dates to 1354–57, or if not complete by 1357, was completed within one or more years thereafter. For a comprehensive discussion of the architectural history of the chapel itself, see Kathleen Giles Arthur, “The Strozzi Chapel: Notes on the Building History of Sta. Maria Novella,” The Art Bulletin 65:3 (Sep. 1983), 367–386. 54 Eugene Paul Nassar, “The Iconography of Hell: From the Baptistry Mosaic to the Michelangelo Fresco,” Dante Studies 111 (1993), 73–74. 55 Ibid, 74.

54 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

to Dante’s infernal vision, it is not clear whether Muhammad is included in Nardo’s composition. A titulus governing a small portion of imagery along the bottom edge of the fresco is inscribed “QUISIPUNISCEGLISCANDALOSI” (Here the Scandalous are Punished). A small figure is visible with a tiny tear in his chest, but it does not transverse the entire abdomen, nor does the painted soul hold its edges apart, as does the protagonist Mäometto in Canto XXVIII, with so exaggerated a sense of victimization. The irrevocable damage to the fresco in its present state notwithstanding, there is no doubt that Di Cione’s original composition must have struck a fourteenth-century viewer as an impressively detailed homage to Dante’s Inferno. In fact, quotations of this particular fresco are identifiable in the pictorial programs of at least two surviving Florentine manuscripts. An illuminated version of the Commedia executed ca. 1390– 1400 and currently housed in Rome, “…draws consistently and heavily on the Nardo fresco for its individual miniatures for the Inferno…” with a few subtle divergences.⁵⁶ A second illuminated manuscript preserved in Paris, dated to c. 1420 and attributed to Bartolomeo di Frusino, contains a frontispiece that strongly recalls the segmented nature of Nardo’s compositional arrangement. The surface of the frontispiece has been subdivided into seven horizontal bands, representative of individual circles of hell according to Dante’s imagined topography, and alternating pictorial vignettes surround a central cavern devoted to the inhabitants of cantos XXXI–XXXIV.⁵⁷ Nardo di Cione’s rendition of the Inferno in Santa Maria Novella, however, must be recognized as something of a unicum. Despite the deliberate incorporation of concrete references to the Inferno in other fourteenth- and fifteenth-century renditions of hell in their respective compositions, two of which will be discussed summarily, these fresco programs nonetheless retain a certain distance from Dante’s narrative which results from a continual process of negotiation between the completion of the focused translation of a literary archetype into pictorial form and individual artistic innovation. The artists involved in the manufacture of these frescoes did not execute a corresponding illustration for a set number of canti in a methodical and linear manner, but rather, within the confines of sequentially completed giornate, they synthesized the entirety of the Inferno into one sweeping compositional program. This process of narrative distillation promoted subtle deviations from the exact descriptions of characters and events in the poem. These all-encompassing compositions were also presumably informed both by existing iconographic conventions for large-scale representations of hell, and by the tendency for artists to quote compositional elements of famed pictorial precursors; both of these elements would have further compromised any strictly literal representation of the Inferno. For all of these reasons, it is most profitable to think of these works of art as Dantesque: compositions that incorporate salient and overt references to Dante’s poem, but which dispense with expectations of measurable exactitude.

56 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4776. Nassar, “The Iconography of Hell,” 75. 57 Paris, Bibliothèque national de France, Ms. it. 74. Ibid., 76.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 55

The two most famous frescoes inspired by Dante’s Inferno are also compositionally interrelated: the representation of Muhammad in both frescoes displays inarguable dispositional similarities, augmented by an unusual and unexpected avoidance of direct physical mutilation of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad’s depiction is also politicized in a manner generally not seen in manuscript illustrations: as we shall see, both of these infernal frescoes exploit Dante’s characterization of Muhammad as a schismatic to condemn its actualization in two historical moments that witnessed one or more rival claimants to the seat of the Papacy. The indebtedness of each composition to the Inferno as a literary model is captured in part by such details as the segmentation of the compositional surface into rocky, cavernous subdivisions evocative of bolgias; the application of inscriptions that identified groups of sinners using epithets found in the Inferno; and the inclusion of Muhammad himself, who was not previously included with the condemned in conventional representations of hell preceding the completion of Dante’s poem. The inclusion of the Prophet of Islam was a caprice unique to Dante himself, who evidently took great pleasure in incorporating an extraordinarily diverse roster of virtuous and nefarious historical and contemporary personalities in his voluminous Commedia, to intellectually challenge and titillate his readership. It is also logical to assume a parallel phenomenon: given the degree to which the Commedia appealed to all social levels, and to which it became a fundamental part of Trecento culture, the many gruesome descriptions contained in the Inferno could readably have been applied to an ever expanding corpus of nefarious and threatening figures. That is to say, even if Muhammad had not be denigrated in Dante’s Inferno, he very likely would have been in a subsequent creative work directly inspired by the poem. The earlier of the two paintings is an Inferno completed by Buonamico Buffalmacco in approximately 1336–41.⁵⁸ The fresco is part of the so-called Triumph of Death

58 Buonamico Buffalmacco, Inferno, c. 1336–41, Camposanto Monumentale, Pisa. Millard Meiss famously attributed the cycle to Francesco Traini, and dated it to approximately 1350, just after the recurrence of the bubonic plague in 1348. In 1964, Polzer identified political figures in the Inferno, which implied a date of c. 1330–35. In 1971 Meiss overturned his earlier assessment, positing a terminus ante quem of 1345. The current attribution of the frescoes to Buffalmacco is based on the seminal study by Luciano Bellosi, who also suggested they were produced in the 1330s. In 1993 the fresco cycle was dated by Polzer with slightly more specificity to 1331–36. See Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death: The Arts, Religion and Society in the mid-Fourteenth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 74; Joseph Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” The Art Bulletin 46:4 (Dec. 1964), 466; Millard Meiss, “Notable Disturbances in the Classification of Tuscan Trecento Painting,” Burlington Magazine CXIII (1971), 178–187; Luciano Bellosi, Buffalmacco e il Trionfo della Morte (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1974), 41–54; and Joseph Polzer, “The ‘Triumph of Thomas’ Panel in Santa Caterina, Pisa. Meaning and Date,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 37:1 (1993), 29. Of equal interest is the presence of the tomb of the hermit Giovanni il Soldato situated below the painting of the Thebaid, who died in the year 1332. Sources fail to clarify, however, whether he was entombed before or after the completion of the fresco. See Chiara Frugoni,

56 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

cycle, composed of four large-scale paintings, including the eponymous Triumph of Death, the Last Judgment, the Inferno, and the Thebaid, originally positioned on the eastern end of the south wall of the Camposanto Monumentale, the grandiose funerary cloister enclosing the northern edge of the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa.⁵⁹ Tradition dictates that the Pisan Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi returned from the Second Crusade (c. 1200–03) carrying earth from Golgotha, which was scattered or buried to consecrate a campus sanctus.⁶⁰ The Archbishop Federico Visconti ceded the actual land used for the construction of the Camposanto on June 18, 1277, to the Opera Sancta Maria to enlarge the old cemetery.⁶¹ Termed the ecclesia (nova) Sancte Trinitatis in communal statutes dated 1287, and featuring an elevated altar at the eastern end of the four-sided cloister, the Camposanto subverts conventional architectural nomenclature, fusing the functions of a cemetery, church and reliquary into one unique structure.⁶² Erected parallel to the processional axis of the piazza, funerary corteges entering the Camposanto from the cathedral to entomb the deceased would have regularly viewed Buffalmacco’s monumental fresco of the Inferno.⁶³ Liturgical celebrations on behalf of the deceased and confraternal worship were also enacted continually in the building, expanding the opportunity for contemplation of Buffalmacco’s painted panorama of the infernal regions. Notably, Buffalmacco’s Inferno constitutes an independent image, separated from the scene of the Last Judgment with which it is usually contiguous in a single, vertical composition. Buffalmacco instead created two parallel frescoes of equal size, enacting a horizontal progression from one to the other that grants the terrifying array of punishments that inhabit the infernal regions a greater degree of visual autonomy.⁶⁴ The impact of the Inferno is further increased through the omission of a third scene

“Altre luoghi, cercando il paradiso (Il Ciclo di Buffalmacco nel Camposanto di Pisa e la Committenza Domenicana),” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, Series 3, 18:4 (1988), 1634–41. 59 To access a plan of the original disposition of the fresco cycle of the entire interior of the cloister, see Antonino Caleca, “Schema topographico del Camposanto,” in Museo delle Sinopie del Camposanto Monumentale, ed. Antonino Caleca, Gaetano Nencini, Giovanna Pancastelli, with a preface by Enzo Carli (Pisa: Opera della Primaziale Pisana, 1979), 48. 60 Antonio Caleca, “Construzione e decorazione dalle origini al secolo XV,” in Il Camposanto di Pisa, ed. Clara Baracchini and Enrico Castelnuovo (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1996), 13. 61 Mauro Ronzani, “Dal ‘cimitero della chiesa maggiore di Santa Maria’ al Camposanto,” in Il Camposanto di Pisa, ed. Baracchini and Castelnuovo, 54–55. 62 Ronzani, “Dal ‘cimitero della chiesa maggiore,” 54; also discussed by Diane Cole Ahl, “Camposanto, Terra Santa: Picturing the Holy Land in Pisa,” Artibus et Historiae 24:48 (2003), 98. 63 Polzer, “The Role of the Written Word,” 361. 64 Janis Elliot, “The Last Judgement Scene in Central Italian Painting, c. 1266–1343: The Impact of Guelf Politics, Papal Power and Angevin Iconography,” (Ph.D. disseration, University of Warwick, 2000), 230 and 236; Jérôme Baschet, “Triumphe del la mort, triumphe de l’enfer. Les fresques du Camposanto de Pise,” L’Ecrit voir 18 (1986), 5–17, esp. 9–10; idem, Les justices de l’au-delà, 308–311.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 57

devoted to paradise. Here the figure of Christ as judge (albeit tempered somewhat by the inclusion of the Virgin to his right) is placed in symbolic opposition to that of Satan commanding the depths of hell, who is also comparatively much larger in scale. Buffalmacco’s Inferno is composed of four registers in which various gruesome punishments are arranged kaleidoscopically around the bestial figure of Satan situated at the center of the composition. The three lowest registers are divided into six zones, each labeled for one of the seven deadly sins. The lowest band of imagery represents the punishment of avarice (to the left of Satan) and lust (right); the second register features anger (left) and gluttony (right); while the third register is devoted to the punishment of sloth (left) and envy (right). Although there is no identifying inscription, the categories of sins depicted in the top register all broadly relate to pride (superbia) and actions which threatened the authority and unity of the Catholic church.⁶⁵ The figure of Muhammad appears to the far right of this upper register, and is easily identifiable through the inscription “MACOMETTO” which curves upwards near his face (fig. 9). Muhammad is bearded and wears a turban, and is shown in a supine position with his arms tied behind his back. The only punishment being enacted upon his soul is dispatched by a snake coiled around his neck, which drags him towards a gaping serpentine hellmouth positioned at the edge of the image. Muhammad is surrounded by other perceived reprobates, arranged in a circular fashion, who suffer a curious array of tortures. Directly to the left of Muhammad, mirroring his own position, another supine figure is being flayed by two demons: one tugs violently at a sheath of skin which it is peeling from his groin and left leg, while a second leans intently over the soul’s upraised arm, wielding a knife. The figure, who wears a tiara, screams in agony. The identifying inscription “A(N)TI(CRIST)O” curves upwards out of his open mouth. Above the figure of Antichrist, another soul stands with his arms tied behind his back; a snake coils around his neck and slithers down behind his torso to hold him captive. It is he, and not Muhammad, who suffers evisceration: a demon reaches into his abdomen, which has been sliced vertically, and pulls at the distended intestines. The figure appears strangely resigned to his fate, and fails to show any overt signs of suffering, looking towards the viscera being expunged. The soul wears a sort of cap on his head, although one can see faint traces of a crown, raising the possibility of an alteration enacted during restoration. Only the letter “S” remains visible from an abraded inscription that once accompanied this figure and was situated above or across its headgear.⁶⁶ To the right of this figure, per-

65 Baschet notes that if one assesses the order of the sins beginning from the upper register and proceeding downwards, their arrangement adheres to the order most common to thirteenth-century materials (with the exception of Buffalmacco’s placement of envy and sloth): superbia / avaritia / luxuria / ira / gola / invidia / accedia. Baschet, Les justices de l’au-delà, 297–298, n. 10. 66 Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 463. “Schismatico” or “storpiato” are both candidates for the original inscription.

Fig. 9: Buonamico Buffalmacco, Inferno (detail), c. 1336–41, Pisa, Camposanto Monumentale.

58   Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 59

pendicular to that of Muhammad, a tonsured figure struggles amidst two creatures. His head is thrown back in anguish as one demon detaches his right arm, while the other stuffs his severed left arm into his mouth and eats it. A short inscription situated to the right of the soul’s tormented face identifies him as “NICCOL[Ò]”. Further to the right another soul is hoisted over the shoulders of yet another demon, which is about to pitch it into the fanged jaws of the hellmouth. An inscription to the right of the upside-down figure reads “SCHOMUNICATO” (Excommunicated). The uppermost register of imagery continues unimpeded above the head of Satan in one extended horizontal band. Two suffering souls are suspended above the horns of Satan with their arms tied behind their backs. One is suspended by his throat, and the other by his feet, tortured by snakes which twist malevolently around their bodies and bite into their flesh. A highly abraded inscription positioned adjacent to their heads reads “[SEMI]NATORE [DI PR]AVA S[EN]TE[NS]IA”.⁶⁷ Two figures stand to the left of them. One holds his severed head in one hand, recalling the description of Bertran de Born, and with his other hand holds aloft a banner inscribed “ARIANO HERETICO / (ET) OGNI AUTRO” (Arius the Heretic and Every Other).⁶⁸ The other figure holds a banner which reads “ERICON INDOVINA [ET] SU/OI SUGUACI” (Ericon the Soothsayer and Her Followers).⁶⁹ Beside them two figures are suspended by a snake wrapped around their necks, and with their arms tied behind their backs, labeled “SIMONIACI” (Simoniacs). They too are being eviscerated. Below these figures stand four other souls, two of which are again decapitated in the manner of Bertran de Born, while the other two are constrained by serpents that coil around their heads, covering their eyes, and biting their breasts.⁷⁰

67 Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 477. Baschet is less certain of the epigraphy, noting only “…ATORE […] SENTENSIA”. See Baschet, Les justices, 299, n. 13. Following Francheschini, the meaning of the inscription would approximate “Sower of false knowledge”. The term “sentensia” encompasses a great number of possible meanings, which includes both religious and political beliefs. See Salvatore Battaglia, ed., Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin: Unione TipograficoEditrice Torinese, 1996), vol. 18, 648. The term “prava” supports an equally wide array of translations, including “perverse” and “wicked”. See Battaglia, ed., Grande dizionario, vol. 14, 27–29. 68 Conversely, “The Arian Heretic and Every Other”. 69 Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 476. Alternatively spelled “Erichtho,” “Erichto,” and “Erittone,” among other variants. Ericon appears very briefly in the Inferno in Canto IX, 22–30, where Virgil explains that his soul was conjured and sent by the sorceress to the lowest part of hell, Judecca. It is unclear whether Dante believed prognostication and divination to be associated with demonic agency, or whether they constituted a form of fraudulent behavior. This theme also permeates Canto XX. See Martinez and Durling, Inferno, 564–567. 70 Baschet sees “La partie supérieure de l’enfer distingue également par les fautes qui y sont punies. On y individualise trois hérétiques (“Ariano heretic e ogni altri”), trois devins (“Ericon indovina e suoi sequaci”), deux (ou trois) simoniaques; deux pendus très probablement coupables d’avoir attenté à l’unité des chrétiens, ainsi que Mahomet, l’Antéchrist, un excommunié et un dénommé Niccolo.” See Baschet, Les Justices au-delà, 299.

60 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

The evisceration and decapitation suffered by multiple figures—torments characteristic of Muhammad and of Bertran de Born respectively in Canto XXVIII—emphasize that although the fresco is deeply inspired by the Divina Commedia, it is not in fact a literal pictorialization of it. This point is also conveyed through the obvious absence of Virgil or Dante, who are both represented with such regularity in illuminated manuscripts of the poem. Indeed, it is quite startling to see Muhammad represented not only with his abdomen intact, but also with the display of such a passive and indifferent demeanor. The disposition of his figure recalls that of Averröes in the panel The Triumph of Saint Thomas, attributed to Lippo Memmi, dated c. 1320–30, and commissioned by the Domenican convent of St. Catherine in Pisa for the church of Santa Caterina, possibly in commemoration of the canonization of St. Thomas in 1323.⁷¹ Broad similarities between the bearded and turbaned figure of Averröes in the panel painting, where he is shown lying listlessly at the foot of a monumental figure of St. Thomas (albeit reversed, with his head on the left, angled away from the mandorla glorifying the saint), and the bearded and turbaned figure of Muhammad in Buffalmacco’s fresco, perpetuated his misidentification as the Andalusían philosopher in the latter.⁷² The significance of the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in the Camposanto hinges on the interpretation of his relationship to the various painted figures positioned around him, who together form a visually cohesive painted subsection. Consensus remains elusive regarding the motivation for the inclusion of Muhammad in the pictorial program, which is not a conventional component of infernal iconography. In 1964 Polzer argued that his depiction partakes of “…a popular rendition of anti-imperial propaganda…” informed by the complex rivalries between King Ludwig IV of Bavaria (r. 1314–47) and Pope Giovanni XXII (r. 1316–34). ⁷³ The death of Pope Clement V (r. 1305–14) in 1314 did not see the immediate election of a successor. Instead, the following conclave was so embroiled in factional

71 The most recent attribution of the painting is to Lippo Memmi, produced concurrent with or shortly before the canonization of St. Thomas. The painting was previously attributed to the workshop of Simone Martini and Francesco Traini, sometime in the 1330s. For a synopsis of the various attributions of the painting and an extensive bibliography, see Joseph Polzer, “The ‘Triumph of Thomas’ Panel,” 30 and n. 1, 62. An illustration of this panel is included in Lina Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from its Origins to St. Bernardino da Siena (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 17, fig. 1.3; and also in Polzer, “The ‘Triumph of Thomas’ Panel,” 30, fig. 1. 72 This misidentification appears, for example, in Giovanni Rosini, Lettere pittoriche sul Campo Santo di Pisa (Pisa: La Letteraria, 1810), 51; Igino Benvenuto Supino, Il Camposanto in Pisa (Florence: Fratelli Alinari, 1896), 87–88; Ernest Renan, Averroes et l’Averroïsme. Essai historique (Paris: Durand, 1852), 240; and D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto, 207; Frederick Antal, Florentine Painting and its Social Background (London: Kegan Paul, 1947), 259; Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, 1951), 1041, among others. Cited by both Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 463, n. 23, and Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 480, n. 77. 73 Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 464.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 61

disputes that consensus eluded the cardinals for month after month. King Phillip V of France (r. 1316–22) ultimately convened another conclave in Lyons in 1316, whereupon Cardinal Jacques Duèze was quickly elected, taking the name of Giovanni XXII. During this period of papal instability rival claimants had also arisen for the Kingship of Germany, between Ludwig of Bavaria, crowned at Aachen, and Frederick I of Austria, crowned at Bonn. Both candidates sought official recognition through imperial coronation enacted by the Papacy and contacted the future Pope Giovanni XXII, who declined to show favor to either candidate, leaving the two to settle the dispute without Papal interference. After Ludwig’s defeat of his opponent, he briefly enjoyed amicable relations with the new Pope, but this congeniality quickly unraveled. Failing to present himself to the Pope for confirmation of his new office, Ludwig nonetheless conducted himself as a legitimate Holy Roman emperor, appointing, for example, Berthold Von Neiffen as the imperial vicar for Italy and offering support to the excommunicated Visconti of Milan, condemned as heretics.⁷⁴ After avoiding various summons to Rome, Ludwig was finally excommunicated in 1327. He subsequently mounted a military campaign into Italy. He settled in Pisa, then an overwhelmingly Ghibelline center. Finally travelling to Rome, Ludwig declared himself emperor on January 17, 1328, without Papal sanction, and he also deposed Giovanni XXII, electing the Franciscan Pietro Rainalducci in his stead as the Anti-pope Niccolò V (r. 1328–30).⁷⁵ He subsequently retreated from Rome and returned to Pisa, followed by Niccolò in January 1329. Hostility mounted quickly towards him, however, resulting in his departure later in the year.⁷⁶ Pisa was once again stabilized towards Papal interests with the triumphant re-entry of Simon Saltarelli (r. 1323–42) in January of 1330.⁷⁷ Originally elected Archbishop of Pisa on June 6, 1323, by Giovanni XXII, Saltarelli had spent the period of imperial domination at the Roman curia.⁷⁸ In light of the city’s recent imperial sympathies, Polzer identified the tonsured figure labeled NICCOL[Ò] in Buffalmacco’s Inferno to be a grim and overwhelmingly contrite portrait of Ludwig’s self-appointed Anti-pope. Yet the relationship between the representation of Niccolò V and Muhammad is complicated by an inscription positioned between the mouths of the two demons who inflict Niccolò’s painted punishment. The inscription reads “QUESTI AMA CETRO MACOME[T]TO” (This One Loves the Other Muhammad). Given the fact that the figure of Muhammad is clearly labeled, it is not easy to identify to whom, or to what, the “other Muhammad” refers. Continuing with his political interpretation, Polzer noted that antipapal propaganda

74 Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 464. 75 Ibid. 76 Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 464. 77 Luzzati, “Simone Saltarelli,” 1655. 78 Luzzati, “Simone Saltarelli,” 1653.

62 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

such as the tract Defensor pacis (Defender of the Peace) were authored by Marsilio of Padua and John of Jandun, who were both followers of Averroist philosophy.⁷⁹ By implication, Polzer understood Averroës to be the “other Muhammad” described in the inscription. The plausibility of Polzer’s interpretation is hampered by the fact that the Antipope Niccolò V is shown merely as a tonsured figure, devoid of any papal regalia. It is instead the figure labeled Antichrist who wears “a false papal tiara”; presumably this figure would also criticize Niccolò V’s illegitimate claim to Papal authority. Equally significant is the absence of any representation of Emperor Ludwig himself. This problem was seemingly resolved when Bisogni argued that the figure of Antichrist was depicted wearing an imperial, and not papal, tiara. Comparisons with a fresco in Rimini led him to conclude that the Antichrist figure actually referred to Ludwig.⁸⁰ However, given the centrality of Ludwig’s role in the political crisis, one would expect that his depiction would be direct and unequivocal. A competing interpretation of Muhammad’s appearance in the fresco dispenses with references to tensions between papal and imperial jurisdiction. In 2000 Francheschini asserted that the figure labeled “NICCOLÒ” was not, in fact, a representation of Niccolò V, but rather the legendary teacher of Muhammad, who, by instructing him in schismatic beliefs, also merited damnation. He deciphered the inscription not as “QUESTI AMA CETRO MACOME[T]TO,” but rather as “QUESTI AMAESTRÒ / MACOME[T]TO” (This [One] Instructed Muhammad), instigating his reinterpretation of the image.⁸¹ Biographies of Muhammad contained in several polemical Christian texts indeed recount the story of a heretical monk who instills false doctrine in the young Muhammad, and in some versions, even assists him in the composition of the Qur’an.⁸² The narreme of the monk contained in these Christian texts, who is most

79 Polzer asserts that Ludwig’s “antipapal propaganda was largely the work of the Averroists Marsilio of Padua and John of Jandun, authors of the Defensor pacis. Since Averroës was a Mohammedan, the Mohammed referred to on the fresco as beloved by Nicholas V is really Averroës in disguise”. See Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 464. 80 Fabio Bisogni, “Problemi iconografici Riminesi: Le storie dell’Anticristo in S. Maria in Porto Fuori,” Paragone 26 (1975), 14–23. The imperial nature of the tiara was also noted by Frugoni, “Altre luoghi,” 1576, and Franceschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 480, who considered it similar in form to that found in the sculpture of Henry VII by Tino da Camaino, dated 1313–15, and currently housed in the Museo dell’Opera della Primaziale di Pisa. 81 An alternative reading of the inscription is “Questi à maestro Macometto.” Although this is plausible on a linguistic level, it is fairly incompatible with the surrounding pictorial context. Franceschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V…,” 465, n. 10. Certainly, the legibility of the inscriptions was compromised by damage inflicted by a bombing raid in 1944, which ignited the lead-tiled roof. Many of the inscriptions are now contained in a fifteenth-century manuscript housed in the Marciana, which was the focus of S. Morpurgo, “Le epigraphi vogari in rima…nel Camposanto di Pisa,” L’Arte (1899), 51–87. 82 Armand Abel, “Bahira,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960), 1:922–23; and Locatin, “Maometto negli antichi commenti,” 43–44.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 63

often identified as Sergius, Nestorius, and Bahira, ultimately derives from Islamic literary tradition. In their biographies of the Prophet, both Ibn Said and Ibn Ishaq relate that the child Muhammad met a Christian ascetic while travelling in Syria in a caravan with Abu Bakr or Abu Talib. The monk was the first to disclose Muhammad’s future prophethood, either by identifying an auspicious mark on his body or by witnessing an irruption in nature, such as the spontaneous movement of a branch or cloud to protect him from the sun, indicating divine favor.⁸³ References to Muhammad’s malicious magister unsurprisingly surface in various Trecento commentaries on the Commedia. Franceschini hypothesized that Buffalmacco was particularly influenced by the commentary of Guido da Pisa, which identified Muhammad’s instructor as his cousin and son-in-law Ali: his Expositiones (c. 1328) contains the phrase “Iste enim Aly fuit magister Machumeth”.⁸⁴ Guido’s surprising identification of Ali as the teacher of Muhammad reappears in subsequent commentaries such as the Chiose Ambrosiane of 1355, and those authored by Guglielmo Maramauro, c. 1373 and Francesco di Buti in c. 1395.⁸⁵ Francheschini therefore suggested that whoever composed the pictorial and epigraphic program of the Triumph of Death cycle, identified for the most part as the Dominican Domenico Cavalca (1270–1342), might have consulted a copy of Guido’s text, perhaps glossed with the name Nicholas, or taken it from one of the many slanderous stories about Muhammad in circulation.⁸⁶ Certainly variants of Niccolò also appear in later commentaries as one of the traditional names of Muhammad’s instructor and instigator. A copy of the Inferno prepared by Bartolomeo Nerucci da San Gimignano, now preserved as Ms. Laurenziano Pl. 42.14, also contains the commentary of Francesco di Buti. The phrase “…questo Hali…che l’amaestrò…” occurs on folio 136v, above which a marginal gloss reads “…Macometus istructus fuit a quodem cleric nobili romano qui vocatus fuit Nicholaus…” (“Macomet was instructed by a noble Roman cleric who was called Nicholaus…”).⁸⁷ The commentary authored by Iacopo della Lana, c. 1324–28, claims that “Maometto fu scismatico per la iniquità d’uno Monaco delle Smirne che ebbe nome Nicolao” (“Maometto was a schismatic because of the iniquity of a monk from Smyrna who was called Nicholaus.”).⁸⁸

83 Ibid. See, for example, ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Hisham, The Life of Muhammad, 79–81. 84 Franceschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 466–467. 85 Locatin, “Maometto negli antichi commenti,” 55ff. 86 Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 474–475. 87 Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 469. 88 Luciano Scarabelli, Comedia di Dante degli Allegheri col commento di Jacopo di Giovanni della Lana Bolognese (Milan: Cavelli, 1865), 129. Cited by Francheschini, “Maometto e Niccolò V,” 468–469. For further discussion of the narreme of the schismatic monk in commentaries on Dante’s poem, see Locatin, “Maometto negli antichi commenti,” esp. 46–48. Locatin also traces how this particular story merged with other ignonimous accounts of his origins.

64 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

A political subtext is equally critical to the interpretation of a second infernal fresco that was executed in approximately 1410–15 in the Bolognini Chapel in the basilica of San Petronio in Bologna (fig. 10).⁸⁹ Attributed to Giovanni da Modena (fl. 1409–1456), its creation was explicitly stipulated in the will of Bartolomeo Bolognini, a highly successful silk merchant, dated February 10, 1408. Bolognini’s will specified that one half of the north wall of the chapel was to be devoted to the “gloria vitae aeternae” (the glory of eternal life) and the other to the “penas infernales horribiles quantum plus potest” (the infernal sufferings [painted] as horribly as is possible).⁹⁰ The basilica of San Petronio was itself conceived as “a politicized sacred site” from its inception.⁹¹ Oscillating between subordination to Visconti Milan and the Papacy from the mid-Trecento onwards, Bologna was only declared a free commune, subject to a Republican government, in 1376. The basilica was one of several subsequent civic initiatives, including the creation of a new reliquary for the head of Saint Petronius, and the inauguration of festivals and feasts to honor the patron saint, which followed the inception of Bolognese self-government.⁹² The reconstruction of the basilica, which commenced in 1389, included the razing of the square in front of the façade in order to fashion a new celebratory city center able to rival that of the established city cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter.⁹³ Professional associations, confraternities and prominent individuals seized the opportunity to acquire the jus patronatus of chapels such as those formally attained by Bartolomeo Bolognini on May 10, 1404, in a public ceremony in the presence of the Bishop, Bartolomeo Raimondi (r. 1392–1406).⁹⁴ The appropriation of the image of Muhammad for political motivations is no less likely despite its relegation to a privately-owned chapel. The Bolgonini chapel fulfills two functions: it is a family mortuary chapel, but also it is the locus of a public proclamation aimed at all citizens.⁹⁵ This is made evident by the fact that the depiction of the Prophet, and its accompanying inscription “MACHOMET,” is so large that it is visible

89 Ilka Kloten, “Il politico Bolognini nel suo ambiente,” in Il Tramonto del Medioevo a Bologna: Il cantiere di San Petronio, ed. Rosalba D’Amico and Renzo Grandi (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1987), 266. 90 Ilka Kloten, Wandmalerei im grossen Kirchenschisma: die Cappella Bolognini in San Petronio zu Bologna (Heidelberg: Weihert, 1986), 85. 91 Evelyn Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 1350–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 249–250. 92 Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 250. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., and Degli Esposti, La Cappella dei rei magi, 13. 95 Raffaella Pini notes “Il motivo per cui abbia scelto una cappella privata per la divulgazione di un messaggio pubblico non é poi difficile da intuire: l’opera era giá in essere e quindi i tempi di esecuzione si sarebbero abbreviati, i Bolognini erano fedeli sostenitori e, non da ultimo, la chiesa di S. Petronio era allora il centro religioso e politico della città, nonchè della curia pontificia, che ne aveva qui la sede e ciò avrebbe garantito una rapida ed efficace diffusione della propoganda.” See Raffaella Pini, Le giustizie dipinte: La raffigurazione della giustizia nella Bologna rinascimentale (Bologna: Minerva Edizioni, 2011), 110.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 65

Fig. 10: Giovanni da Modena, Inferno (detail), c. 1410–15, Bologna, S. Petronio, Bolognini Chapel.

66 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

even through the gates to the chapel, ensuring it was witnessed by an audience much larger than the Bolognini family alone.⁹⁶ As in Buffalmacco’s fresco, the composition is anchored by a towering, zoomorphic figure of Satan, here clearly chained to radial rock formations that form discrete, cavernous spaces housing crowds of condemned souls. The arrangement of the punishment of the seven capital sins largely follows Buffalmacco’s format, with the exception of those guilty of pride, which is granted its own pit in the center of the bottom register, directly below Satan, labeled “superbia”. The pit to the left is devoted to the punishment of avarice, and to the right, that of lust. Directly above, on either side of the figure of Satan, appear the punishment of anger (left) and gluttony (right). Above those, further towards the edge of the painting, one finds the punishment of sloth (left) and envy (right). As in the Pisan Fresco, the uppermost register of imagery continues in one extended visual field of theatrical punishments, including those characteristic of Canto XXVIII, but suffered by figures other than Muhammad. At the uppermost left, a decapitated figure holds his severed head beside him, in the manner of Betran de Born, but instead given the name “DATAN”. He holds aloft a banner featuring an inscription that is, unfortunately, barely legible.⁹⁷ Another figure, positioned to the right of the suspended head, is inscribed “ABI[RON]”.⁹⁸ Further to the right two souls dangle in contorted positions, pierced by the branches of a tree, while two others are tied to the trunk by serpents which bite at their flesh. Each suffers Muhammad’s characteristic punishment: they are sliced open at the abdomen, and suffer the inspection of the contents of their intestines, which are pulled out by a demon. An inscription above their heads identifies them as “SAC[R]ILEGI” (Profaners). Beside this spectacle stands a woman holding aloft a banner inscribed “MALIADICI”.⁹⁹ Two further souls are suspended upside down by snakes, their arms pinned behind their back, for the

96 The visibility of the depiction of Muhammad was undoubtedly a factor in the events of late June, 2002, when a number of men were charged and arrested for plotting to blow up the basilica in order to destroy Giovanni da Modena’s fresco. See Giusi Fasano and Fiorenza Sarzanini, “Al Qaeda voleva colpire a Bologna,” Corriere della Sera, June 24, 2002, accessed September 5, 2011, http://www. corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2002/06_Giugno/23/bologna.shtml. 97 Baschet asserts that the banner reads “Scismatici.” However, close study suggests a different slogan, perhaps a term beginning with the letters “Eri”. See a complete list of transcriptions in Baschet, Les justices au-delà, 641. 98 The brothers Datan and Abiron, sons of Eliab, denied the authority of Moses and rebelled against him, and so were swallowed whole by the earth (Num. 16: 1–34). 99 It is difficult to render an accurate translation of this phrase. The noun malia refers to a spell, charm, or an enchantment; combined with the passive construction dici the banner is best understood as “[The ones who] have enchanted” or “Enchantors.” I would like to thank Valerio Cappozzo for articulating the many nuances of this compound term. Pini, Le giustizie dipinte, 109. Baschet instead reads the word as “Malfadici.” See Baschet, Les justices au-delà, 641. “Maliardi” remains a third possibility.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 67

sin of “IDOLATRIA” (Idolatry). Several souls, labeled “ERETICI,” (Heretics) are clustered around a second tree, their tongues bitten by snakes, and another unfortunate, labeled “ARIUS,” is suspended above. To the far right, a soul labeled “SIMON” (presumably Simon Magus) is being hurled into the mouth of hell. Between these categories of sins appears Giovanni da Modena’s most distinctive addition to Buffalmacco’s template. The artist has extracted the figure of Muhammad from the cluster of souls which envelop him in the Camposanto and magnified his scale, transforming him from a notable inhabitant of hell into its chief protagonist. He is situated on a rocky outcrop flanking the head of Lucifer and is unmistakably identified through the inscription “MACHOMET” painted in bold letters immediately below him. He is arranged awkwardly, with his arms folded beneath his torso, recalling its configuration in Pisa; one leg is bent and raised so that his right foot hooks behind his left knee. His ragged beard is white with age, and the artist has painted a length of cloth wound around his head in an approximation of a turban. This does not deter a horned and winged demonic creature with sharply-clawed feet from pulling at Muhammad’s head in an attempt at decapitation, as opposed to the evisceration prescribed by the Commedia, equally absent in the Camposanto. The contested “NICCOLÒ” also reappears from the Pisan fresco, but rather than standing perpendicular to the supine Muhammad, he assumes a parallel posture. Various snakes rise out of the rocky crevices to bite at the tonsured figure, held steady by a demon, while another creature hacks randomly at his body, severing a foot and an elbow. Hollering in agony, his head turns towards the inscription “APOSTATA NICHO[LA]” (Nicho[la] the Apostate).¹⁰⁰ The magnification of these two figures is especially conspicuous given the chaotic political climate in which the fresco was executed, when the Papacy was still ensnared by rival factions in Rome and Avignon who supported separate claimants to the Papal throne. Baldassare Cossa, the appointed Papal legate to Romagna, convened the council of Pisa in 1407 to resolve the rift. In 1409 the council deposed the two rival Popes, the Roman-based Gregory XII and the Avignon-based Benedict XIII. Pietro Filargis was elected, taking the name Alexander V.¹⁰¹ Theoretically the schism was resolved, but in reality, the contest for Papal power had merely expanded to three active claimants as opposed to two. Bologna was then positioned as the Papal seat of the new pope, who officially entered the city on January 12, 1410. After only three months, however, Alexander V died and was succeeded by Baldassare Cossa himself, who took the name Giovanni XXIII.¹⁰² The highly politicized

100 Pini correctly notes that the phrase “Apostata Nichola” is leggible in older, black and white photographs of the fresco. Pini, Le giustizie dipinte, 109. 101 Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 465. 102 Ibid, and Carlo Degli Esposti, La Cappella dei rei magi nella basilica di San Petronio (cappella Bolognini) (Bologna: Basilica San Petronio, 2007), 15.

68 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

nature of Giovanni da Modena’s Inferno is reinforced through a small lunette fresco surmounting a window on the adjacent wall in the chapel. The fresco depicts Giovanni XXIII enthroned in full Papal regalia, in the act of consecrating the Benedictine Giovanni di Michele as bishop of Bologna in 1412.¹⁰³ Given the strong claim to legitimacy in this fresco, the figure of Nichola has thus been interpreted as a reference to both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII.¹⁰⁴ Therefore, both the Inferno in Pisa and that in Bolonga directly apply Dante’s characterization of Muhammad as a schismatic, to condemn its actualization in two historical moments that witnessed one or more rival claimants to Papacy.¹⁰⁵ This does not overrule the possibility that a minority of viewers understood the inclusion of the figure Niccolò / Nich[ola] to be the legendary teacher of Muhammad. However, the likelihood of a polemical and political component to these compositions is intensified by the civic nature of these commissions, which enhances their suitability for propagandistic content. Together, these two frescoes present a complex image of the Prophet that is at variance with the eviscerated representation of Muhammad that proliferates throughout illustrated manuscripts of the Inferno, and which relies upon his prescribed grotesque injury to serve as his identifying attribute. Multiple compositional formulae governing the pictorialization of Muhammad were available in a range of other literary manuscripts that were in circulation throughout twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe and thereafter. The existence of such representational variability attests to the fact that the Prophet of Islam was the focus of considerable creative energy and pictorial experimentation at the hands of numerous artists. While it is possible that either Buffalmacco or Da Modena were familiar with these pre-existing representational strategies, neither fresco is necessarily indebted to these earlier models. The many tortures traditionally depicted in the crowded scenes of hellfire and routinely incorporated into larger depictions of the Last Judgment—on sculpted tympana, in frescoes, and in manuscripts—could also have inspired these two artists towards fancifully experimental and physically compelling arrangements of Muhammad’s body. Both compositions would also have been impacted to some degree by the enlargement of scale offered by the available wall surface; Da Modena certainly took advantage

103 The inscription “papa iovane XXIII servus servorum dei alleluia…” on a scroll held by a cardinal painted to the left of the Pope confirms this is a representation of Cossa. 104 Polzer, “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell,” 465. 105 The majority of scholars favor Polzer’s interpretation of Buffalmacco’s fresco. These include, but are not limited to, Chiara Frugoni, Lina Bolzoni and Janis Elliot. See Frugoni, “Altri luoghi,” 1576, n. 31 and 1591, n. 54; Lina Bolzoni, The Web of Images, 25; and Elliot “The Last Judgement,” 235, who even attests “Ludwig of Bavaria’s Italian campain is thus the probable terminus post quem of the Campo Santo fresco cycle”. Jérôme Baschet is less definitive, stating “Anti-pape ou inspirateur de Mahomet, Niccolo se rattache également à cette thématique. Par ailleurs, on rappel que Mahomet est consideré au Moyen Age comme un schismatique s’étant séparé de l’Eglise chrétienne”. Baschet, Les justices au-delà, 299, n. 15.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 69

of the space at his disposal to enlarge the figure of the Prophet relative to the other inhabitants compressed into the scene. Therefore, these and other large-scale mural compositions constitute a distinct subcategory of imagery that was highly responsive to the instantaneous fame of the Inferno that must be examined on its own terms.

Cross-Cultural Mutilation At approximately the same time that Dante was writing his magnificent Commedia and relegating the Prophet Muhammad to the memorably gruesome extraction of his entrails in canto XXVIII, a particular tale associated with the life of Muhammad was widely circulated throughout the Islamic world. This was the legend of the shaqq al-sadr (the splitting of the chest), which relates how the Prophet Muhammad was subject to corporeal mutilation—in this instance, not as divine punishment, but rather as an initiatory passage into prophecy. The narrative, which survives in multiple renditions, relates how several angels opened Muhammad’s chest and removed his heart, which was immersed and washed in a washbasin filled with water—alternatively from melted snow, the Zamzam well in Mecca, or the Kawthar pool—to ensure its purification. The narrative also describes how his heart was mended and restored to its rightful position inside his chest cavity, which was then closed shut with the seal of prophecy (khatam al-nubuwwa),¹⁰⁶ itself a visible confirmation of his divinely decreed apostleship. Hadith compilations vary in their details of the splitting of Muhammad’s chest. Some texts state that it occurred during Muhammad’s childhood, inaugurating his prophetic future, while other accounts place it later in his adult life as a “preamble of revelation,” immediately preceding the endowing of Muhammad’s prophethood and the appearance of the Angel Gabriel as divine messenger.¹⁰⁷ A few versions of the legend even multiply the ceremonial event, recording its occurrence in childhood, in adulthood, and again on a third occasion immediately prior to the mi‘raj.¹⁰⁸ Versions also differ regarding the exact organ involved, oscillating among the belly, the heart and the breast.¹⁰⁹ All of these organs constitute the core of the upper body, itself the

106 Gruber notes “Other representations which may serve as iconographic precedents for this composition include the depiction of Caesar delivered by Caesarian section found in the Biruni manuscript...as well as surgical manuscripts where nudity is not uncommon”. Gruber, “The Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension,” 70. 107 Uri Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muhammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims: A Textual Analysis, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 5 (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1995), 64. 108 See Harris Birkeland, The Legend of the Opening of Muhammad’s Breast (Oslo: J. Dybwad, 1955), 16. Other traditions even include a fourth or fifth occurrence. 109 Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder, 69.

70 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

repository of the soul. Resultingly, the narrative of the splitting of the chest functions as metaphorical tale of spiritual purification. Although the shaqq al-sadr episode is absent in some of the earliest and briefest accounts of the event, many versions of the legend include a distinctive detail wherein an angel or divine agent extracts an amount of unwanted or putrid material from Muhammad’s chest cavity, which is then thrown away. This act transforms an obviously initiatory ceremony into a rite of purification, after which Muhammad is declared ready for his prophetic office. In this way the body of the prophet is physically elevated above that of all humanity, so that it is a suitable vessel for the reception of divine revelations. In some versions of the tale, the unwanted muck consists of a black spot or one or more blood clots. In a version of the legend recorded by alTabari (c. 839–923), three angels directly cleanse his body of sinful practices without removing a blood clot. The text describes how: [t]hey fetched water from the well of Zamzam and washed his inner parts and cleansed him thereby of whatever was there of doubt (shakk), or idolatry (shirk), or ignorance (jahiliyya) or error (dalata). Then they filled his body with faith and wisdom (Imanan wa-hikmatan), and ascended to heaven with him...¹¹⁰

In al-Tabari’s account, the washing away of these inhibitions to belief functions as a precursor to the Prophet’s mi‘raj, which begins once the extraction is complete. The connection between these two miraculous events, however, is not isolated to this particular text. In fact, the legend of the shaqq al-sadr became associated with his ascension, appearing in the majority of extant mi‘raj texts. Both the opening of Muhammad’s breast and the mi‘raj tale serve to verify the conferral and confirmation of Muhammad’s predestined election and utmost rank among a long line of chosen prophets. During his voyage through the heavenly realms Muhammad encounters several prophets who have preceded him, including Moses and Jesus, who bless him and acknowledge his own prophetic status. The preternatural cleansing of his body thus initiates Muhammad’s selection, which reaches a natural point of completion in his colloquy with God, itself the symbolic apex of his journey through the heavens. The opening and cleansing of his heart prepares him for the angelic realms and for the presence of God, obviating the inherent pollution and terrestrial nature of his corporeal materiality. The legend of the shaqq al-sadr is included in the prolegomenon to a mi‘raj text written during the period of Ilkhanid rule (1256–1353). The text, dated 685/1285 and written in Persian, is preserved in a manuscript in Istanbul.¹¹¹ The earliest surviv-

110 Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder, 66. 111 Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Ayasofya 3441. The episode is recounted on fol. 7r: “…I saw a basin of gold and a gold water pitcher from paradise. Then Gabriel laid me down and split open my chest. He took out several clots of black blood from my heart and threw [them] away. He said

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 71

ing Islamic representation of the shaqq al-sadr dates from the same period; painted c. 1300, it was executed a mere few years prior to the completion of the Inferno. It is contained in an illustrated manuscript version of Bal‘ami’s Persian translation of al-Tabari’s Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings), thought to have been produced in Mawsil (Mosul), a city in northern Iraq (fig. 11).¹¹² The painting’s accompanying text recounts an episode from Muhammad’s infancy, when he lived with his wet nurse, Halima. One day, when Muhammad was playing with his milk brother, ‘Abdallah, in the desert, three men arrived. These divine messengers quickly held the three-year old Muhammad on the ground, and removed and cleansed his heart. The painted image shows a young Muhammad (lacking adult symbols, including a robe, beard, long plaited hair, and turban) held firmly with his arms spread wide open by three men, one of whom has cut an incision that renders visible his heart. A figure pours liquid from a purple vessel into the incision, while another figure holds a golden bowl below the opening, ready for the extraction of the organ. A woman, likely Halima, is painted to the far left of the frame, her arms thrown upwards in a gesture of anguish and shock. Whereas images of Canto XXVIII often emphasize the distention and unfurling of the intestines, to better evoke the grotesque manner of Muhammad’s humiliation and punishment, here the viewer is captivated by the peaceful expression on the face of Muhammad, who seems to be serenely surrendering to his angelic visitors. The manuscript itself reflects the rapid development of the book arts after the Mongols’ conversion to Islam. This period of creative ferment resulted in a surge of illustrated manuscripts produced between 1280–1336, in tandem with the endowment of multiple mosques and architectural complexes capable of housing the facilities required for their manufacture, including papermaking factories, and the organization of artisans preparing pens and ink, calligraphers, bookbinders, leatherworkers, illuminators, etc.¹¹³ Approximately three dozen Ilkhanid manuscripts survive in full or partial form. These manuscripts feature an unprecedented number of images

‘O Muhamad, this is evil desire.’ He took out several other clots and also threw them away, saying: ‘This is worldly delight.’ He took out several other clots and threw them away, saying, ‘This is carnal pleasure,” meaning worldly desires. Then Gabriel filled that basin with Zamzam water. He washed my heart in it and filled it with knowledge, wisdom and light. He rubbed his wings on me. He put my heart back in its place and said, ‘Be like before, by the power of God.’ My chest returned to what it had been. Aisha said, ‘I always could see the mark of the splitting, and it was always visible.’” Gruber, The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension, 37. 112 Washington D.C., Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, F1957.16, 42.2 × 28.7 cm, fol. 138r. 113 Robert Hillenbrand, “The Arts of the Book in Ilkhanid Iran,” in The Legacy of Ghengis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 135ff. See also Charles Melville, “Padshah-i Islam: The Conversion of Sultan Mahmud Ghazan Khan,” in Persian and Islamic Studies in Honour of P. W. Avery, ed. by Charles Melville (Pembroke Papers, 1. Cambridge: Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, 1990), 157–177.

72 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Fig. 11: Anonymous, “Opening of Muhammad’s Breast,” Balami’s translation of al-Tabari’s Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings), Mawsil (Mosul) ca. 1300, 42.2 × 28.7 cm, F 1957.16, fol. 138r, Washington D.C., Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 73

depicting the Prophet Muhammad and narrative scenes from his life.¹¹⁴ In addition to the Bal‘ami manuscript, image cycles depicting the Prophet are found in al-Biruni’s al-Athar al-Baqiya (Chronology of Ancient Nations), datable to 1307–8, as well as in several versions of Rashid al-Din’s magisterial Jami‘ al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), produced between 1307 and 1314.¹¹⁵ Coincidentally, the earliest paintings depicting the Prophet’s ascension also survive from the Ilkhanid period. This series of nine paintings, attributed to the master painter Ahmad Musa, are preserved in a Safavid album of paintings and calligraphies dated 1544–45, which was compiled by Dust Muhammad for Bahram Mirza, the brother of the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp (r. 1525–76). Having been cropped for insertion into the album, their accompanying text no longer survives. Their emphasis on the Prophet Muhammad, however, remains self-evident: he appears in all nine of the paintings, flying on the shoulders of the Angel Gabriel, arriving at the gates of each heaven, and exploring otherworldly domains during his celestial journey.¹¹⁶ The relationship between the shaqq al-sadr and the Prophet’s mi‘raj is all the more compelling given the evidence for Dante’s probable knowledge of an Islamic ascent narrative. Could Dante’s characterization of Muhammad have been further informed by knowledge of the Islamic “splitting of the chest” narreme, especially as contained in an ascension text? Or is the conspicuously inverse relationship between the two portrayals merely coincidental? Recently it has been suggested that Dante might have known an abbreviated version of the shaqq al-sadr through select Qur’anic passages, which in turn could have influenced Dante’s characterization of Muhammad.¹¹⁷ While there is no direct evidence that Dante knew the Qur’an, Latin translations were in

114 Hillenbrand, “The Arts of the Book,” 136 and 139. 115 For a discussion of the Ilkhanid emphasis on the depiction of Muhammad, see, for example, Priscilla S. Soucek, “The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated Versions,” in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World, ed. Priscilla S. Soucek (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 193–209; eadem, “An Illustrated Manuscript of al-Bīrūnī’s Chronology of Ancient Nations,” in The Scholar and the Saint: Studies in Commemoration of Abu’l-Rayhan al-Bīrūnī and Jalal al-Din al-Rūmī, ed. Peter J. Chelkowski (New York: Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University Press, 1975), 103–168; Robert Hillenbrand, “Images of Muhammad in al-Biruni’s Chronology of Ancient Nations,” in Persian Painting from the Mongols to the Qajars: Studies in Honour of Basil W. Robinson, ed. idem (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000), 129–146; and Sheila S. Blair, A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din’s Illustrated History of the World, ed. Julian Raby, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, vol. 27 (Oxford: Nour Foundation and Oxford University Press. The Nour Foundation, 1995). 116 Gruber, The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension, 3. For discussions of this sequence of fragmentary paintings, see Christiane Gruber, “The Ilkhanid Mi‘rajnama as an Illustrated Sunni Prayer Manual,” in The Prophet’s Ascension: Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic Mi‘raj Tales, ed. Christiane Gruber and Frederick Colby (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 27–49, and Gruber, The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension, 25–31. 117 Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 207–224, esp. 211ff.

74 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

circulation—seemingly more widely than the Liber Scale Machometi—among erudite circles throughout thirteenth-century Europe. Indeed, the tradition of Latin translations of the Qur’an was well-established: early versions were completed by Robert of Ketton for Peter the Venerable in 1142–43 and by Mark of Toledo in 1210–11.¹¹⁸ The “opening” or “expansion” of Muhammad’s chest is evoked on at least two occasions in the Qur’an: fleeting reference to Muhammad as “one whose heart God has opened (sharaha) to Islam” appears in Surat al-Zumar (“The Troops,” alternatively, “The Throngs,” Q 39:22–23);¹¹⁹ and it is also the opening theme of Surat al-Sharh (“The Opening,” Q 94:1–8), which commences with the castigation (Q 94:1–4) “Have we not expanded (nashrah) thee thy breast? And removed from thee thy burden? (The) which did gall thy back? And raised high the esteem (in which) thou (art held)?”¹²⁰ Certainly, the original Arabic version of the sura provides minimal detail regarding the nature of this opening or expansion. It has been argued that the translation of these lines by Mark of Toledo are instilled with a unique “urgency and mystic density” equally absent in the Latin translation completed by Robert of Ketton.¹²¹ For example, for the first line (“Have we not expanded thee thy breast?”) Mark of Toledo substituted the Latin word “adaperui” (“laid bare” or “fully opened”) for the Arabic “sharaha,” while Robert of Ketton preferred instead the phrase “fecit amplum” (“made wide”). For the third line (Which weighed down thy back?) Mark of Toledo used the word “disrupit” (“burst asunder” or “shattered”) in place of the Arabic word “anqada,” while Robert of Ketton inserted the slightly incongruous phrase “tergusque graue fecimus” (“and we made your back heavy”).¹²²

118 Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 210. Mallete notes that “...three of the fourteenth-century commentaries mention the Qur’an when discussing the career of the Prophet in their comments on Inferno 28—Guido da Pisa (on Inf. 28.25–27); the Codice Cassinese (on Inf. 28.23); and Benvenuto da Imola (on Inf. 28.22–24). No commentators, of course, mention the Liber Scale or the mi‘raj tradition in general.” See Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 210. 119 As Mallette explains, “Here the presence of a single word—sharaha, the verbal form of the noun sharh—signals the reference to the sharh episode.” Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 221, n. 22. It is unclear which translation of the Qur’an Mallette is relying on here, although in earlier footnote (220, n. 12) which recounts the opening line to Surat al-Isra’ (“The Night Journey,” Q 17:1), Mallette cites The Holy Qur’an: Translation and Commentary, trans. Yusuf Ali (n.p.: Islamic Propagation Centre International, 1946), 693. Because Surat al-Zumar is composed of seventy-five ayat, it is regretfully too long to be recounted in full here. 120 The author was unable to consult the translation cited in the preceding footnote. This English translation relies on The Holy Qur’an, trans. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, (Lahore: 1934), 596. The sura continues (94:5–8) “So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief; Verily, with every difficulty there is relief; Therefore, when thou art free (from thine immediate task), still labor hard; And to thy Lord turn (all) thy attention.” 121 Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 211. 122 Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 211–212. Mark of Toledo’s translation of Q 94:1–8 reads “Nonne adaperui cor tuum / et remoui a te peccatum tuum / quod tibi disrupit dorsum? / Et exaltaui memoriam tuam / quoniam cum difficultate facultas, / et difficultate facultas, / Et cum adimpleueris /

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 75

Compelling references to the Prophet’s experience of God’s touch can be found in other polemical Christian texts. For example, a brief passage in the Contra legem Saracenorum (Against the Law of the Saracens), by Riccoldo of Monte Croce, reflects Muhammad’s encounter of the throne of God at the culmination of his mi‘raj. It describes how God placed his hand between Muhammad’s shoulders “…in such a way that the frigidity of his hand penetrated all the way through the marrow of my spine.”¹²³ Yet it seems unlikely that these brief textual passages, redolent though they are with intensely poetic imagery, would have been sufficient to inspire Dante’s defamatory presentation of Muhammad, with its violent rupture of the integrity of the prophetic body. This is particularly doubtful given the simple fact that a version of the legend of the shaqq al-sadr appears in the compilation of polemical texts concerning Islamic doctrine instigated by Peter the Venerable. The appearance of a version of the legend in the De generatione Machumet et nutritura eius ensures that the dispersal of an authoritative Latin account of the story entered monastic circles in France and beyond almost one hundred and seventy years prior to Dante’s composition of the Inferno. Whereas the serpentine image of Muhammad appears in the lower right corner of folio 11r of MS Arsenal 1162,¹²⁴ the legend of the opening of Muhammad’s breast appears on folio 17v.¹²⁵ The text appears in the third portion of the vita, which is devoted to the notable events of Muhammad’s infancy and youth. The section is narrated by his wet nurse Halima, the woman who is rendered in such an anguished state in the painting of the shaqq al-sadr contained in the Freer manuscript version of al-Tabari’s Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. The text of the De generatione reads:

contemplare oraque creatorem tuum.” Mark of Toledo, Liber Alchorani, Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, F. v. 35, fol. 83r–v. Cited by Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 221, n. 24. For a discussion of both Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo’s translations, see Thomas Burman, “Tasfir and Translation: Traditional Arabic Qur’an Exegesis and the Latin Qur’ans of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo,” Speculum 73 (1998), 703–732. Cited by Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 221, n. 23. The brief portions of Robert of Ketton’s translation quoted here are taken from the Lex Mahumet (Machumetis Saracenorum principis, eiusque successorum vitae, doctrina, ac ipse Alcoran…), ed. Theodore Bibliander (Basel: Ioannes Oporinus, 1550), 1:143, II, 41–49, with corrections from Paris, Bib. nat., MS lat. 1162, fol. 137ra, as cited by Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 212 and n. 25. 123 Cited in Mallette, “Muhammad in Hell,” 214 and 222, n. 34, which provides the Latin translation: “Tetigitque me Deus manu sua inter humeros usque adeo ut usque ad medullam spine dorsi mei manus eius frigiditas perveniret.” The translation derives from the partial transcription of Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica, Vat. Lat. 7317, f. 291r, contained in Cerulli, “Il Libro della Scala,” 349. This particular phrase also appears in the anti-Muslim text known as the Liber denudationis, which survives in a single manuscript, bound with Mark of Toledo’s Qur’anic translation, in the Bibliotèque nationale de France, MS lat. 3394, fols. 238r–263v. See Mallette, “Muhammmad in Hell,” 215. 124 See the discussion of this serpentine image in the introduction to this volume, authored by Avinoam Shalem. 125 The legend appears specifically in columns “a” and “b.”

76 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

He said that three men brought the kidnapped boy [Muhammad] from the midst of friends onto the mountain and completely eviscerated him by opening his stomach. We ran in a panic and found him on the mountain as he [Halima’s son] had said, but unharmed. We demanded insistently what in the world happened. As if terrified, he said “Three shepherds brought the kidnapped one here. The first of them opened [me] from the chest to the navel, harming nothing, and he washed the open viscera with snow.  Next, the second one touched the heart through the middle and, plucking a black seed from the middle, threw it away, saying “This is the devil’s portion.” The third man cleansed me and restored me as I was and am.¹²⁶

The version is fairly faithful to the sequence of events narrated in Islamic texts and provides a visually compelling image. The legend of the cleansing of Muhammad’s chest and his disembowelment in Canto XXVIII were definitively connected in the first vernacular translation of the Qur’an, edited by Andrea Arrivabene and printed in Venice in 1547, entitled the Alcorano di Macometto (The Qur’an of Muhammad), attesting to widespread knowledge of the legend of the shaqq al-sadr among an Italian scholarly readership at least by that date. The shaqq al-sadr is the subject of the lower of two vignettes inserted into the left margin of the frontispiece, which comprises six miniature compositions depicting scenes from Muhammad’s life.¹²⁷ The illustration features some polemical interpolations to the legend through the inclusion of a normative element of Christian iconography: a cross appears in the foreground, with a strange snake-like creature leaning on the cross-bar, evoking the Antichrist. The Qur’anic text is preceded by two biographies of the Prophet. The shaqq al-sadr episode appears in a subsection entitled La Nodritura di Macometto (The Nurture of Muhammad) in the second vita. In his commentary upon the text, Arrivabene makes a direct link between the legend of the splitting of the Prophet’s chest and Dante’s description of Muhammad’s punishment in the Inferno. In reference to the description of the cleansing of Muhammad’s heart Arrivabene writes: “Perhaps this author wishes that Mohammed should be split in two from his chin to that point from which one farts, as

126 The Latin text reads: “Ille tres viros puerum e medio sociorum arreptum in montem elevasse, apertoque ventre totum eviscerasse ait. Accurrimus amentes invenimusque ut dixerat in monte, illesum tamen. Rogamus queruli quidnam acciderit. Ille, quasi terrefactus: “Tres” inquit “viri de pascuis arreptum huc elevarunt. Quorum primus a pectore usque ad umbilicum nichil ledens aperuit. Apertaqueviscera nive lavit. Succedens secundus cor per medium fidit et e mediogranum nigrum eripiens abiecit dicens: ‘Hec est portio diaboli’. Terciuslota extergens me ut fueram et sum restituit.” My thanks to both Michelina Di Cesare and Ariella Elema for their assistance translating this passage. This text appears, untranslated, in Michelina Di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 114. 127 For a longer discussion of Arrivabene’s translation and the vignette showing the splitting open of Muhammad’s chest, see Alberto Saviello’s contribution to this volume.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 77

happened to the schismatics in Inferno XXVIII,” going on to quote directly Muhammad’s opening lament to Dante and Virgil.¹²⁸ Given the number of Arabic texts and translations thereof in circulation throughout Italy, and the appetite for polemical information concerning the Prophet Muhammad, it is extremely likely that a version of the shaqq al-sadr was among them. However, it is also possible to find both literary and pictorial models for Dante’s evisceration of the Prophet Muhammad in earlier Christian episodes, such as the spectacular death of the heretic Arius. His end was sudden and sordid: he fainted in a public latrine, and “falling headlong he burst asunder in the middle”.¹²⁹ In his Historia ecclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History), Socrates Scholasticus describes how, “[t]ogether with the evacuations, his bowels protruded, followed by copius hemorrahage, and the descent of the small intestines. Moreover, portions of his spleen and liver were carried off in the effusion of blood, so he almost immediately died”.¹³⁰ The spectacularly ignoble death of Arius could have served as an appropriate model for Dante’s punishment of Muhammad. Numerous theologians drew a parallel between the two personages, including John of Damascus, Eulogius of Córdoba, and Riccoldo of Monte Croce.¹³¹ Peter the Venerable asserted that principles “first sown by Arius, and then advanced by this Satan, that is, Muhammad, would indeed be wholly completed by Antichrist, according to the diabolical intention”. ¹³² Marginal annotations of Robert of Ketton’s Liber legis Saracenorum quem Alcoran vocant (The Book of the Laws of the Saracens, which They Call the Qur’an) were even more succinct, asserting that “the denial of Christ’s divinity [in Islam] was ‘the sum of this diabolical heresy’” and therefore that “in this man [Muhammad] the Arian heresy lived again (haeresis Arriana revixit)”.¹³³

128 The pertinent section of Book I of the first of the two biographies of Muhammad appended to Arrivabene’s translation of the Qur’an, entitled “La Nodritura di Macometto,” appears on folio 9v. It reads “Forse augura questo scrittore che Macometto sia cosi sfesso dal mento in sin dove si trulla, come scismattico, del quale Dante nel canto XXVIII. del Inferno, e nel nostro argomento sopra quello(!)” Dante, Divina Comedia, Inferno, Canto XVIII: “Già veggia, per mezzul perdere o lulla, com’io vidi un, così non si pertugia, rotto dal mento infin dove si trulla. (...) Mentre che tutto in lui veder m’attacco, guardommi e con le man s’aperse il petto, dicendo: “Or vedi com’io mi dilacco! vedi come storpiato è Mäometto!” 129 Athanasius, Letter 54 to Serapion. Cited by Esposito Frank, “Dante’s Muhammad,” 196. 130 Socrates Scholasticus, Historia ecclesiastica 1.38. Cited by Esposito Frank, “Dante’s Muhammad,” 196, and 205, n. 35. 131 Esposito Frank, “Dante’s Muhammad,” 195. 132 Peter the Venerable, Liber contra sectam sive haeresim Saracenorum, prol. 2–9. Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 210 and 390, n. 49. 133 Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 210 and 418. Scholars such as D’Alverny and Kritzeck have suggested that this annotator was none other than Peter of Poitiers, but Daniel suspects he was an unknown Mozarab.

78 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

Other texts, such as books two and three of Epiphanius of Salamis’s Panarion, alternatively called the Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), also remark upon a perceived similarity between Arius’s unfortunate end and the suicide of Judas. The iconographic tradition of the “hanged Judas,” which incorporates morbid, corporeal detail stands out among the many derogatory images of Jews produced in illuminated manuscripts and monumental sculpture produced in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.¹³⁴ One notable example graces the Münster in Freiburg im Breisgau. Completed in approximately 1300, it is technically a parish church, despite the grandeur and complexity of its sculptural program. The depiction of Judas is located in the lowest frieze of the left tympanum on the west porch of the tower hall.¹³⁵ In this register one finds the narrative of Christ’s arrest by Roman soldiers as orchestrated by Judas. Adjacent to a conventional representation of Judas leaning in to kiss Christ, whose shoulder is forcibly grabbed by a Roman soldier, Judas appears again: his corpse is shown dangling from a tree, his innards having spectacularly burst forth from his abdomen in a series of coils that extend down to his knees. Each silver denarius he received for the betrayal is shown falling from his outstretched hand, while his soul (represented by a small anthropomorphic form), punctured by spears, is carried off by two devils. This grisly depiction of Judas reflects the convergence of Scripture (particularly accounts of his death in Matt. 27:3–10 and Acts 1:15–26) and contemporary theological writings, such as Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica (Scholastic History), composed during the second half of the twelfth century.¹³⁶ Comestor explains that the body of Judas was condemned to

134 Oswald Goetz, “Hie henckt Judas,” in Form and Inhalt: Kunstgeschichtliche Studien Otto Schmitt zum 60. Geburtstag am 13.12.1950 dargebracht von seinen Freunden, ed. Hans Wentzel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1950), 105–138; Anthony K. Cassell, “Pier della Vigna’s Metamorphosis: Iconography and History,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. Aldo Bernardo and Anthony L. Pellegrini (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1983), 31–76, esp. 50–60; Annette Weber, “The Hanged Judas of Freiburg Cathedral: Sources and Interpretations,” in Imaging the Self, Imagining the Other: Visual Representation and JewishChristian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed. Eva Frojmovic (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2002), 165–188; Janet Robson, Speculum imperfectionis: the Image of Judas in Late Medieval Italy (Ph.D. Dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2001); eadem, “The Fear of Falling: Depicting the Death of Judas in Late Medieval Italy,” Fear and its Representations in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Anne Scott and Cynthia Kosso (Brill: Turnhout, 2002), 33–65. 135 The exterior of the porch is engraved with the date 1295. Münzel dates the entire sculptural program to c. 1300; Kurmann additionally dates the cycle of the west porch to ca. 1290–1310. See G. Münzel, Der Figurenzyklus in der Vorhalle des Freiburger Münsters (Freiburg: 1959), 237s, and P. Kurmann, “Die Skulpturen der Freiburger Münstervorhalle,” in Geschichte der Stadt Freiburg, ed. H. Haumann and H. Schadek (Stuttgart: 1996), vol. 1, 370–75. Cited in Weber, “The Hanged Judas,” 168, n. 10. 136 Weber, “The Hanged Judas,” 168–169. The representation of the thirty denarii represents a concrete departure from biblical texts, since both the passages mentioned above state that the money was no longer in his possession at the moment of death.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 79

burst so that his soul could exit through his intestines, and therefore avoid defiling the mouth or lips purified by the kiss that condemned Christ: For he was not worthy of touching the heavens or the earth; but he perished between them, because he had betrayed our Lord of both…And his intestines were spilled, but not through his mouth, in order to spare the mouth with which he had kissed the Saviour.¹³⁷

Depictions of Judas also appear in the sculpted tympana on the cathedrals of Reims and Strasbourg, but do not conform to a single iconographic formula. Representations of an eviscerated Judas are quite rare outside of Northern Europe, although a notable example appears in Giotto’s monumental fresco of the Last Judgment gracing the west wall of the Arena Chapel in Padua, executed in approximately 1305.¹³⁸ Judas’s corpse hangs limply amongst the panoply of gruesome figures that populate the infernal regions, each tormented creatively by an unending supply of devils. His head lurches to one side, his neck snapped, and the fabric of his tunic parts to reveal an opening in his midsection out of which a tangled mess of entrails spills forward. The cause of this undignified death is presented on the chancel wall, where Judas is shown in the act of receiving from the High Priest the money earned for his betrayal of Christ. Directly across the divide of the chancel, in horizontal juxtaposition, is a painted scene of the Visitation, depicting the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, both gloriously pregnant. The compositions of both scenes are intentionally similar: each pair is dressed in red and gold robes, and is positioned alongside a modest architectural structure, consisting of two or more columns and decorated with panels of relief sculpture. Both pairs are engaged in an act of exchange, one of affection and the other of ill-gotten funds. Judas’s perfidy is a particularly resonant theme given that the construction of the chapel is widely interpreted as an act of restitution by Enrico Scrovegni for usurious practices—his own and those of various family members, including his father, Reginaldo.¹³⁹ According to canon law and various scholastic tracts, usury constituted a perversion of the inherently sterile nature of money. Indeed, “because it forces money to breed, [usury] was considered in contradistinction to the procreative

137 The pertinent passage reads “Non enim dignus erat ut vel coelum tangeret moriens, vel terram; sed inter utraque periit, qui utrorumque Dominum ad mortem tradidit…et diffusa sunt viscera euis sed no per os eius, ut sic parceretur ori, quo Salvatorem osculates fuerat.” See Paul Franklin Baum, “The Medieval Legend of Judas Iscariot,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America XXXI (1916), 517–518, and Weber, “The Hanged Judas,” 169. 138 Other examples of this iconography in Italy include a potential detail on the ceiling of the baptistry of Florence, and Pietro Lorenzetti’s image of the suicide of Judas in the lower basilica of Assisi. 139 See Ursula Schlegel, “On the Picture Program of the Arena Chapel,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 20 (1957), 125–146 (repr. James Stubblebine, ed. Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frecoes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 182–202).

80 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

processes of the animate world.”¹⁴⁰ It has been convincingly argued that both the representation of Judas on the chancel arch, and again in the Last Judgment, partake of a wider iconographic program defined by the antithetical relationship of fecundity versus sterility.¹⁴¹ According to this interpretation, the viscera spilling unbidden from Judas’s shameful corpse constitute a “grim inversion of childbirth.” ¹⁴² Dante does not recount Judas’s suicide in his poetic vision of hell, but instead he condemns him to an even more ignoble and unimaginable punishment. Not only is the final circle of hell, Judecca, named after the traitor, but his soul is exiled to the very lowest depths of the infernal regions, and positioned headfirst in the central opening of Lucifer’s three mouths (Inf. 34: 55–63).¹⁴³ Lucifer, “the emperor of the dolorous kingdom,” (“Lo ’mperador del doloroso regno…”) is buried to his midsection in ice; this astonishing profile is augmented by six featherless, bat-like wings that extend from his back and continuously fan the air, freezing all of Cocytus. He is a three-faced monstrosity, his neck supporting one crimson muzzle, one between white and yellow, and one black in color. Tears and bloody slobber fall from his six eyes and dribble down his three chins, as he masticates the condemned souls “in the manner of a scutch,” sometimes stripping the spine of all flesh.¹⁴⁴ Judas has been swallowed headfirst; his upper body is engulfed in the creature’s maw, while his buttocks and legs dangle from its mouth. He is framed by the souls of Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, whose upper bodies hang helplessly from the adjacent orifices. Satan’s mouths, forever devouring the damned trio, are rendered mute in a perversion of their original purpose, the eternal glorification of God.¹⁴⁵ Once the highest of the seraphim, able to fly the fastest around the divine throne intoning the trisagion,

140 Derbes and Sandona, “Barren Metal and Fruitful Womb: The Program of Giotto’s Arena Chapel in Padua,” The Art Bulletin 80.2 (Jun. 1998), 277. 141 Ann Derbes and Mark Sandona, “Barren Metal and Fruitful Womb,” 280, and their subsequent collaboration, The Usurer’s Heart: Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), chapter 2. 142 Derbes and Sandona, “Barren Metal and Fruitful Womb,” 280. 143 “Da ogne bocca dirompea co’ denti / un peccatore, a guisa di maciulla, / sì che tre ne facea così dolenti. / A quel dinanzi il mordere era nulla / verso ’l graffiar, che talvolta la schiena / rimanea de le pelle tutta brulla. / “Quell’ anima là sù c’ha maggior pena,” / disse ’l maestro, “é Giuda Scarïotto / che ’l capo ha dentro e fuor le gambe mena.” (In each of his mouths he was breaking a sinner with his teeth in the manner of a scutch, so he made three suffer at once. To the one in front the biting was nothing next to the clawing, for at times the spine remained all naked of skin. “That soul up there who has the greatest punishment,” said my master, “is Judas Iscariot, with his head inside, waving his legs outside.”) Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 536–537. 144 Durling explains: “[t]he scutch or flax-brake has a hinged wooden paddle fitting into a slotted piece beneath it. Raw flax, placed between the two pieces, is crushed when the paddle descends, separating woody parts from the strands that can be combed and spun into linen.” The scutch was a new invention in Dante’s time—the earliest references to the device are from early fourteenth-century Holland. 145 Dino S. Cervigni, “The Muted Self-Referentiality of Dante’s Lucifer,” Dante Studies 107 (1989), 45.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 81

his formerly resplendent wings ensure his eternal fixity.¹⁴⁶ Having rejected praise of the divine for his own pride, Dante’s Lucifer cannot sing, and “is deprived of the word”.¹⁴⁷ His endless mangling reifies “his antithetical condition to God’s Word,” in a grotesque parody of the Eucharist, the word made flesh and offered as nourishment to all of Christendom.¹⁴⁸ It is Judas’s avaricious act of treachery that renders him an appropriate mechanism for Lucifer’s continual silence: his consumption participates in the many metaphors of consumption and digestion found throughout Malebolge¹⁴⁹ that Dante continually relied upon in his punishment of the fraudulent, playing upon the nourishing quality of knowledge and truth. Despite superficial parallels between the evisceration ascribed to Mäometto in Canto XXVIII; the eruption of costive entrails during Judas’s legendary suicide, recounted in numerous literary texts and select pictorial programs; and the noisy champing of Judas in Canto XXXIV, it is extremely unlikely that Dante’s depiction of Muhammad is in any way derived from the figure of Judas. In actuality, Dante decisively differentiates the two figures through their relative position in distinct regions of hell. Dante furthermore does not poeticize Judas’s suicide, thus excluding any reference to his bursting viscera from the text, but instead creates a new and ever more extraordinary death for him. Dante also partially mitigates the religious nature of Judas’s betrayal by the selection of his immediate companions, Cassius and Brutus, both of whom are guilty of political treason. If indeed Dante did look to Christian literary precursors for the bodily mortification suffered by Mäometto, Arius is a much more logical historical exemplar; the doctrinal deviation and division endemic to heresy is much more closely aligned to the consequences of religious schism. Additionally, although pictorializations of the Prophet Muhammad in printed pamphlets and books from the sixteenth century onwards do clearly appropriate and adapt Christian iconographic formulas,¹⁵⁰ this must not distort analysis of Dante’s operative method. Dante’s representation of Muhammad was overridingly informed by his identification of the Prophet as a schismatic. Dante’s extraordinary intellectual acumen undoubtedly imbued the figure of the Prophet Muhammad with multiple, complementary associations. On one level, Dante undoubtedly intended the reader to see the punishment suffered by Mäometto as a literal interpretation of schism: the cleaving of Muhammad’s soul reflected the perceived suffering of the Catholic Church as a corporate body, which registered Islam as a vagabond manifestation or hereti-

146 Ibid. 147 Ibid., 46. 148 Ibid. 149 Durling notes “The descent into Hell is also a descent into increasing materiality…[a] pattern closely related to the Neoplatonic notion of the underworld as signifying the descent into bodily existence, combined with Saint Paul’s conception of “the body of this death” (Rom. 7.24), the heavy, material, mortal body which the damned never transcend.” Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 554. 150 Please see the chapter by Alberto Saviello in this volume.

82 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

cal parody of its own doctrines, metaphorically splitting or fragmenting this body, and requiring its expurgation. Yet on another level, Dante constructed his characterization of Muhammad as a calculated inversion of a physical ordeal integral to his Prophethood in an known Islamic narrative, and recounted in full or partial translations or summaries—such as that which appears in MS Arsenal 1162—which would have entertained his most intellectual and literate readers.

Corporeal Metaphor The uncanny similarity between Dante’s expurgation of Muhammad’s viscera and the extraction and reinsertion of his heart in Islamic “splitting of the chest” narratives reflects the universality of the theme of purification, here expressed through both Christian and Islamic poetic and pictorial modes. The inverse relationship between the two episodes underscores how the physical body could serve as a metaphoric locus for the designation or derision of holy and prophetic figures in late medieval society on a global level. In both of these literary images, and in their painted depictions, the disruption of corporeal integrality instigates a spiritual transmutation based on a perceived reciprocity between interior and exterior form. The role of corporeal metaphor in the construction or deconstruction of an individual’s elect status occurred not only in literary and pictorial representations but also was materialized, or actualized, through the propagation of relics in both societies. Body fragments were an intrinsic part of medieval Christian devotion: by the eighth century, relics were necessary for the consecration of altars, and prior to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when canonization was centrally issued by Papal decree, the authoritative conferral of sanctity was achieved through the translation of a relic of the would-be saint to an altar.¹⁵¹ The twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries also witnessed the widespread popularity of so-called “body-part” reliquaries,¹⁵² characterized by a sup-

151 Caroline Walker Bynum and Paula Gerson, “Body-Part Reliquaries and Body Parts in the Middle Ages,” special issue, Gesta 36:1 (1997), 3–4. Bibliography regarding relics in medieval Christianity is inexhaustible, however, for general introductions to the subject see Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des Saints: formation coutumière d’un droit (Paris: Klincksieck, 1975); Peter Brown, The Cult of Saints: its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981); Patrick J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); idem, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), esp. 42–44 and 168–218; and more recently, Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson, ed. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 152 This class of objects was traditionally called “redende Reliquiäre” (speaking reliquaries) in German scholarship. Dispensing with the German terminology and its implication of a one to one correspondence between the shape of the reliquary and its contents, Cynthia Hahn suggested the phrase “shaped reliquaries,” and more recently, “charismatic” body-part reliquaries. Cynthia Hahn,

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 83

posed analogy between the shape of the reliquary and the physical remains contained inside.¹⁵³ The distinctive aesthetic of this class of reliquaries rests in its uncanny presentation of the container in the shape of a body part in isolation, such as a head, arm, finger, rib or other fragment.¹⁵⁴ The overt naturalism of these reliquaries “insisted upon a larger whole,” that is, called to mind the body of which they were one representative part, but continuously emphasized its partition from that whole, particularly when incorporated into liturgical performance (ordinaries, for example, record that arm reliquaries were often used by priests to actively bless the congregation.).¹⁵⁵ The veneration of relics, widespread throughout the Islamic world until the modern period, is only now emerging as a focus of study.¹⁵⁶ Certainly, the Christian veneration of relics supplemented actual, physical remains with pieces of clothing, instruments of torture, any number of objects believed to have been in direct contact

“The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries,” special issue, Gesta 36:1 (1997), 20–31; and eadem, “The Spectacle of the Charismatic Body: Patrons, Artists, and Body-Part Reliquaries,” in Treasures of Heaven, 163–172. 153 Scholars have learned to expect an amount of “slippage of meaning and importance between the container and the contained,” or interchangeability in corporal remains. That is to say, a reliquary in the shape of a particular body part may not, upon inspection, in fact preserve that body part but rather something else entirely, or even contain both that body part and additional relics. Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints,” 20. 154 For a discussion of this category of reliquaries, see Walker Bynum and Gerson, “Body-Part Reliquaries and Body Parts in the Middle Ages,” special issue, 3–7. See also Barbara Drake Boehm, “Body-Part Reliquaries: The State of Research,” special issue, Gesta 36:1 (1997), 8–19, and Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints,” 20–31; and eadem, “The Spectacle of the Charismatic Body,” 163–172. For a discussion of the fragmentation of saintly bodies, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 201ff and 320ff. For discussions concerning resistance to the partition of dead bodies, see, for example, J. M. McCulloh, “The Cult of Relics in the Letters and ‘Dialogues’ of Pope Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study,” Traditio XXXII (1976), 145–184; idem, “From Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change in Papal Relic Policy from the Sixth to the Eighth Centuries,” in Pietas: Festschrift für B. Kötting, ed. E. Dassman and K. S. Frank (Münster: Aschendorff, 1980), 313–324; and Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: The Legislation of Boniface VIII on the Division of the Corpse,” Viator 12 (1981), 221–270. 155 Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints,” 22 and 27, 29, n. 21 and 30, n. 48. 156 See, for example, Joseph W. Meri, “Relics of Piety and Power in Medieval Islam,” in “Relics and Remains,” ed. Alexandra Walsham, supplement, Past and Present 106, no. S5 (2010), S97–120; idem, “Aspects of Baraka (Blessings) and Ritual Devotion among Medieval Muslims and Jews,” Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue, special Issue 5:1 (1999), 46–69; idem, “The Etiquette of Devotion in the Islamic Cult of Saints,” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, ed. James Howard-Johnston and Paul A. Hayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 263–286; Brandon Wheeler, Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006), esp. chapter 3, entitled “The Relics of the Prophet Muhammad,” and idem, “Relics in Islam,” Islamica 11 (Summer/ Fall 2004), 107–112.

84 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

with the holy deceased, as well as “topographical” relics such as bits of wood, soil, rock or vials of water. By comparison, relics of the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim saints were overwhelmingly vestigial rather than overtly corporeal, reflecting a belief in the inviolability of the human body. Examples of the Prophet’s relics include: nail parings, strands of hair, sweat, saliva, corporeal traces (such as footprints and handprints), or biographical objects such as pieces of clothing, utensils, or weapons. Early Christian and Byzantine relics and loca sancta were believed to convey blessings, or eulogia, both immaterially, that is, received through a pious act, such as kissing the relics of the True Cross, or materially, directly encapsulated in a previously neutral substance such as dirt, oil, water, or wax that had been infused with eulogia through direct contact with the relic or locus sanctus.¹⁵⁷ Throughout Latin Christendom, relics were also thought to retain the virtus of the saint, and were commonly referred to as corpora or membra.¹⁵⁸ Similarly, those of Muslim holy figures were believed to impart baraka (divine blessings).¹⁵⁹ Among their many functions, relics were used throughout the Muslim world to enact healing, to reinforce dynastic legitimacy, and to sanction architectural complexes. For example, hairs of the Prophet were often used in the foundation of public buildings, such as the madrasa of al-Majakiya in Damascus, established by Sayf al-Din Manjak. Once construsted, such buildings often functioned as repositories for the sacred objects.¹⁶⁰ One distinction between Christian and Muslim practice, however, rests in the orthodoxy of the relics themselves. Certainly, “relics were never accorded any official status in Muslim canonical prayer as in Christian liturgy,” which had an indelible impact on their widespread visibility.¹⁶¹ This semi-canonical status did not curtail active belief in the potency of these objects, a fact reflected in stories such as that recounted by al-Dabbagh explaining the burial of the body of Abu Zam’a

157 Gary Vikan, “Art, Medicine, and Magic in Early Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984), 67ff. See also idem, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2011). 158 See, for example, Caroline Goodson, “The Relic Translations of Paschal I: Transforming City and Cult,” in Roman Bodies: Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, ed. Andrew Hopkins and Maria Wyke (London: the British School at Rome, 2005), 129. 159 For an introduction to the veneration of the Prophet and holy figures in Islam, and of pilgrimage to an ever-expanding network of tombs and shrines, see Joseph Meri, Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 160 Other examples include the Mashhad al-Husayni in Damascus, the Masjid al-Jazzar Pasha in Acre, the Masjid al-Husayni and the Ribat al-Maqshabandiya in Cairo, and the Bahubal in India. Brannon Wheeler, “Relics in Islam,” 108. There were some exceptions to the absence of integrally corporeal relics in Islam, such as the veneration of the head of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn b. Alī in Cairo and of the head of St. John the Baptist (Yaḥyā b. Zakarīyā) in Damascus. However, Husayn was martyred through decapitation, ensuring that the fragmentation of the body occurred at death, and not after it. See Meri, “Relics of Piety and Power,” 101 and 102. 161 “…nor were altars erected around them nor were there priests to translate the efficaciousness of those relics to devotees” Meri, “Relics of Piety and Power,” 100.

Intersections between Mi‘raj Narratives 

 85

al-Balawi, a companion of Muhammad, with three hairs of the Prophet, one resting on each eye and one on his tongue, undoubtedly to facilitate his soul’s entrance into paradise.¹⁶² Whether in Christianity or Islam, relics literally embody the religious experience of the venerable deceased. What better place then to denigrate a saint or prophet than in an imagined theater of death? That Dante’s abnegation of Muhammad’s prophethood involved the corporeal disarticulation of his soul in death made this degradation exponentially more powerful.¹⁶³ Canto XXVIII viscerally disjoins the body of the deceased Prophet, enacting violence on an imaginary level that could not be achieved in reality. The episode also reflects the perceived suffering of the Catholic Church as a corporate body, which registered Islam as a vagabond manifestation or heretical parody of its own doctrines, metaphorically splitting or fragmenting this body, requiring its expurgation. Indeed, Dante’s dismemberment of the Prophet remains so overwhelmingly offensive to Muslim readers that translations of the Inferno into Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu regularly omit the lines of the canto which describe Muhammad and Ali.¹⁶⁴ In conclusion, the pictorialisation of Dante’s Divina Commedia propelled new images of Muhammad throughout Europe. It is important to emphasize the extent to which Dante’s sanguinary characterization of Muhammad conferred upon him a new corporeal materiality. Muhammad was given a body, and the explicit mutilation of this body was pivotal to the making of his new image. Illuminated manuscripts

162 See Dabbagh, Ma’alim al-aymun fi ma’raifat ahl al-Qayrawan (Cairo, 1988), 1:97. Cited by Wheeler, “Relics in Islam,” 108. 163 Corporeal metaphor informs the basic structure of Dante’s hell. Robert M. Durling has emphasized how the sins of fraud, and particularly those punished in Malebolge, correspond to the belly through “countless references to the processes and products of the human digestive system”. See Durling and Martinez, Inferno, 552–555 and 576–577. See also Robert M. Durling, “Deceit and Digestion in the Belly of Hell,” in Allegory and Representation: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1979–80, ed. Stephen J. Greenblatt (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 61–93. 164 Unfortunately, very little scholarship has explored the reception of Dante throughout the Islamic world, with the exception of Jeffery Einboden, “Voicing an Islamic Dante: The Problem of Translating the Commedia into Arabic,” Neophilologus 92 (2008), 77–91. Modern translations available in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urbu include Al-Rihlah al-Dāntiyah fī al-Mamālik al-Ilahiyyah, trans. ‘Abbūd Abū Rāshid, 3. vol. (Tripoli, 1930–33) and Kūmīdiyā Dāntī Alījyīrī, trans. Hasan ‘Uthmān, 3. vol. (Cairo: Dār al-Ma’ārif, 1959–69, and 2nd ed. 1967–69); Kumidī Ilahī, trans. Farīdah Mahdavī-Dāmghānī, 3 vol. (Tehran: Nashr-I Tīr, 1999); Ilahi Komedi, trans. Hamdi Varoglu (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitabevi, 1948); and Karbiyah Tarbiyah, trans. Shaukat Wasti (Peshawar: Idarah Ilm va Fan, 1982). For instance, Einboden notes that a reader of Uthmān’s translation would arrive at line twenty-one (“il modo de la nona bolgia sozzo,”) only to be presented with its twenty-fourth verse directly following it (“Un altro, che forata avea la gola,”) commencing the description of Pier de Medicina. This excision of forty-two lines of the poem is signalled by a brief footnote at the end of the canto which alerts the reader to Uthmān’s decision to omit verses which concerned the Prophet Muhammad, but does not elaborate on the nature or exact location of the content removed. See Einboden, “Voicing an Islamic Dante,” 81–82.

86 

 Encountering the Body of Muhammad

served as the initial forum in which the grotesque punishment recounted in Canto XXVIII was visualized, developing into his attribute. The emergence of fresco paintings by Buonamico Buffalmacco and Giovanni da Modena, both inspired by Dante’s Inferno, introduced the image of Muhammad into a more widespread, public forum. However, because these particular frescoes were not directly dependent upon Dante’s text, his characteristic evisceration was displaced to adjacent figures. Stripped of his personalized punishment, the identification of Muhammad was subject to a few orientalizing touches and was reinforced through an inscription. Scholars have long considered whether the Liber Scale Machometi was a source of Dante’s Inferno, but have overlooked the intense probability that an oral or written version of the legend of the shaqq al-sadr also infiltrated Dante’s milieu. This is particularly striking given that the legend is often directly appended to mi‘raj texts, and that an ascension narrative of the Prophet was also circulating among intellectual circles throughout Spain, England, and, undoubtedly, France and Italy, having been translated into Latin in 1264 and various vernacular languages at approximately the same time. Whereas the dissection of the prophetic body in the shaqq al-sadr served as a positive instance of prophetic purification, the mutilation of Muhammad in Dante’s poem was, to some extent, an iconoclastic act that directly obviated his elect status. The ascension recounted in mi‘raj texts was literally inverted upon Muhammad’s descent into the infernal realms so lavishly described in Dante’s poem.

Muhammad’s Multiple Faces Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe* Alberto Saviello The printing press exerted a lasting influence on the European perception of Islam. The mass multiplication inherent to this technology made texts regarding Islam available for the first time, not only to the clergy, but also to a wider secular public. Among the many publications which shaped the Western image of Islam, translations of the Qur’an were of special importance, because they typically provided the most detailed and authentic information the European reader could acquire concerning the Prophet Muhammad and his teachings.¹ Over two hundred different editions of Qur’an trans-

* I’m deeply grateful for the support I received from many scholars and friends during the process of researching and writing this article. First of all, I would like to thank Avinoam Shalem, with whom I was able to discuss the many objects analyzed in this chapter and who generously shared his ideas and knowledge. I’m also very thankful for the support of Christiane Gruber, who generously shared her knowledge of Muslim traditions concerning the representation of the Prophet and who helped me to refine my ideas on several occasions. I also owe a sincere thank you to Michelina Di Cesare. Her work on Latin sources describing the Prophet Muhammad formed the basis for my understanding of images of the Prophet contained in printed books, and she was always willing to answer any questions I may have had regarding written sources. I would also like to thank Heather Coffey for many interesting and illuminating discussions regarding different depictions of Muhammad and for her help in transforming my text into pleasantly readable English. 1 This project involved the consultation of translations of the Qur’an and of biographies of Prophet Muhammad in English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Czech and Hungarian. The research was based on several bibliographies, including Juan Pablo Arias Torres, “Bibliografía sobre las traducciones del Alcoran en el ámbito hispano,” TRANS. Revista de Traductologia 11 (2007), 261–272; Marc-Edouard Enay, ed., Mohammed und der Heilige Koran (Hamburg, 1995); Hartmut Bobzin, “Latin Translations of the Koran. A Short Overview,” Der Islam 70 (1993), 193–206; Ismet Binark and Halit Eren, ed., World Bibliography of Translations of the Meanings of the Holy Qur’an: Printed Translations 1515–1980 (Istanbul: Research Center for Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 1986); Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, s.v. “Translation of the Kur’ān”; James D. Pearson, “Bibliography of Translations of the Qu’rān into European Languages,” in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. Alfred F. L. Beeston and Thomas M. Johnstone (Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1983), 502–520; Victor C. Chauvin, ed., Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes ou relatifs aux Arabes publiés dans l’Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, vol. 10, Le Coran et la tradition (Liege: Vaillant-Carmanne, 1907); ibid., vol. 11, Mahomet (Liege: Vaillant-Carmanne, 1909); Alexander G. Ellis, ed., Catalogue of Arabic Books in the British Museum, vol. 1 (London: British Museum, 1894); Egon Lambrecht, ed., Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de L’école des langues orientales vivantes, vol. 1 (Paris: Impr. Nationale, E. Leroux, 1897). These bibliographies were augmented by the catalogues of various international libraries: The British Library in London, La Bibliothèque National de France in Paris, La Biblioteca Nationale di Firenze, the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, the Staatsbibliothek München,

88 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

lations into European languages were published from the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, which bear testimony to a sustained appetite for information regarding Islam by European audiences.² Considering that the Catholic Church banned the Qur’an shortly after its first published translation in 1543—a prohibition that was officially lifted only in 1917—this huge number of printed editions is all the more striking.³ However, the books in which Muhammad is discussed and represented are not confined to Qur’an translations. Works belonging to distinct literary genres all broached the issue of the Prophet Muhammad, indicating that the founder of Islam was both a matter of religious interest and also a subject of general curiosity. Commencing with the earliest translations of the Qur’an printed in Europe, this section will trace the history of the visual representations of Muhammad in these texts and analyze the changes that the image of the Prophet underwent in this context. These depictions, which have rarely been the subject of scholarly attention,⁴ are of particular importance. Containing several life-like and seemingly tangible figures, the biographical scenes or “portraits” of the Prophet dispersed throughout these publications constitute undeniably concrete visualizations of Muhammad, which provide critical insight into contemporary Western perceptions of the Prophet and Islam. It

the University Libraries in Basel and Düsseldorf, and the internet-based catalogue worldcat, available at http://www.worldcat.org. 2 Burman, for example, describes the Qur’an as a “bestseller”. See Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qu’rān in Latin Christendom: 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 1. 3 The first interdiction mentioned in the Roman Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books) affected only the first Qur’an translation printed in Basel 1543. Some years later, other editions were listed in the Indices. Furthermore, Pope Alexander VII (r. 1655–67) enacted a general prohibition regarding the publication of Muslim religious texts. See Jesús M. de Bujanda, René Davignon, and Ela Stanek, ed., Index des Livres Interdits, vol. 8, Index de Rome 1557, 1559, 1564, les premiers index romains et l’index du Concile de Trente (Genève, Suisse: Droz, 1990), 720 and 825; and Heinrich F. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Literaturgeschichte, vol. 1, (Bonn: Cohen, 1883), 137–138. The last implementation of the prohibition is to be found in the Decreta Generalia (I,11) of Pope Benedict XIV, which bans “Instructionum et Rituum sectae Mahometanae libri omnes” (all books belonging to the rites of the Mahometan sect and books for their instruction). See, for example, Catalogue des Ouvrages mis à l’index (Paris: Impr. ecclésiastique de Beaucé-Rusand, 1825), LVI. The Decreta Generalia were operative until 1917, when the Codex Iuris Canonici (Can. 1385–1405) of Pope Benedict XV no longer explicitly prohibited the publication of books with Islamic content. The Holy See abolished the Index completely in 1966. With the exception of the Latin translations of the Qur’an made by Padre Ludovico Marracci in 1698, who was Pope Innocent XI’s confessor, from the first edition published by Arrivabene in 1547 until 1882, no other Qur’an translation was published in Italy. Censorship concerning the dispersal of the Qur’an in Poland and Spain must have been similarly severe, where vernacular versions were printed only in 1858 and in 1872 respectively. 4 Current scholarship regarding images of the Prophet in Europe mostly concentrates on literary sources. Critically important publications are named in the master bibliography available for consultation at the end of the volume.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 89

will be shown that these woodcuts and engravings function not merely as incidental illustrations but constitute an independent form of expression, one that should be examined not only in terms of the images’ intrinsic value and visual complexity, but also regarding their multiple and multilayered interactions with the textual content of the books themselves. In some cases these pictorializations of the Prophet conveyed arguments and propagations concerning Muhammad that were perhaps of greater expressive efficacy than the texts themselves. Before embarking on the discussion of these images, it is important to emphasize that the application of techniques such as woodcut and copper engraving enacted a seriated multiplication and dispersal of the visual representations of Muhammad that involved a significant change in the consumption of his image within the context of book illustration. In order to appeal to a wider public these images had to be easily understandable but still compelling, and novel. To this end, artists producing images of the Prophet often relied upon the adaptation of established Christian iconographic formulas. The first part of this chapter discusses one of the most important visual motifs used to characterize the Prophet, the representation of Muhammad as an Antichrist. This motif, which was used in illustrations accompanying printed books from the 16th century onwards, established a paradigm operative, to a greater and lesser degree, in subsequent images in Western printed books up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first example that explicitly applied the iconography of Antichrist to the representation of Muhammad was Wynkyn de Worde’s book Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes lawe called Alcaron. And also it speketh of Machamet the Nygromancer, published in 1515 in London. This publication is historically important because it was the first printed book to deal exclusively with Muhammad and the Muslim religion in both text and image.⁵ Furthermore, the representation of the Prophet in this book is especially noteworthy because De Worde was the first printer in England to specifically aim his publications to the mass market, namely to popular interest. Thus, his image of Muhammad presumably corresponded to the vision of the Prophet in the public sphere.⁶ The lytell treatyse of the turkes law, consisting of

5 The electronic catalogue of the National Library of Australia suggests 1519 as an approximate date for Wynkyn’s treatise. National Library of Australia, accessed July 19, 2010, http://catalogue.nla.gov. au/Record/2698931?lookfor=Here%20turkes%20Alcoran&offset=1&max=1. The earliest depictions of the Prophet in woodcut are contained in two editions of John Mandeville’s Travels, printed 1481 in Augsburg and Basel. See John Mandeville, Das Buch des Ritters Herr Hannsen von Montevilla [...], trans. by Michel Velser (Augsburg: Anton Sorg, 1481), fol. 26r, 45v. John Mandeville, Reysen und Wanderschafften durch das gelobte Landt, Indien vnnd Persien, trans. by Otto von Diemeringen (Basel: Bernard Richel, 1481), without pagination. 6 De Worde was a former collaborator of Britain’s first book printer, William Caxton, from whom he inherited the workshop. Moran states “His [De Worde’s] place in history is that of the first publisher and printer to popularise the products of the printing press.” See James Moran, Wynkyn de Worde.

90 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

only six folios, can be seen as part of a widespread phenomenon of publishing “little treatises” produced by De Worde and other English printers, which generally offer short summaries and overviews of specific topics.⁷ For his production of this volume, De Worde simply reused a part of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which he had first printed ten years earlier.⁸ The description of the Prophet in Mandeville’s successful fictional travelogue bears all the characteristics of the literary paradigm of the “legendary Muhammad” discussed elsewhere in this volume.⁹ In order to adapt the text, written around 1370, to the needs and wants of the sixteenth-century reader, the printer added a short introduction dealing with the Ottomans, who are described as the contemporary “banner holders” of Islam and who had, under Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520), reintroduced an aggressively expansionist policy. Certainly this polemical introduction broaching a pressing political and military issue was an important tool for attracting consumers and guaranteeing a successful sale of the edition. The short treatyse is additionally illustrated with two woodcuts, and the inclusion of compelling images was no less important for this commercial purpose.¹⁰ The first picture, which features a “Turkish” priest holding up a sword while delivering a sermon, is positioned on the first page just under the title. In the second woodcut Muhammad is featured in a composition appearing on the verso of the folio (fig. 12). The Prophet is depicted standing on a pulpit, together with a horned devil on the right side of the image. The left side of the image features another pulpit with two haggard-looking bearded men. The intentional opposition of the two pulpits is reinforced through the division of the listeners depicted in the foreground, who focus their attention on one or the other. The followers of Muhammad, prompted by the horned devil behind him, are evidently immoral in their behavior. For example, the old woman shown directly under the pulpit begs the preacher for a gift, while the group in the foreground negotiates the price of a prostitute. In contrast to the questionable morality of the people to

Father of Fleet Street With a Chronological Bibliography of Works on Wynkyn de Worde compiled by Lotte Hellinga and Mary Erler and a Preface by John Dreyfus (London: British Library, 2003), 21. 7 De Worde’s smaller books often bear titles using the set phrase “a lytell treatyse”. Examples include: Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the horse, the shep, and the goos, 12 folios, printed c. 1499; Here begynneth a lytell treatyse for to lerne Englysshe and Frenssh, 12 folios, c. 1497; Here begynneth a lytell treatyse called the contraverse bytwene a lover and a Iaye, 12 folios, c. 1525; Here begynneth a lytell treatyse called the Lucydarye, 32 folios, 1508(?). 8 Mandeville’s Travels were edited for the first time in England by De Worde in 1499. 9 The text describes Muhammad’s life in a flamboyant style. It not only reports two of his wonders but introduces him as “a grete astronomyer” and as “keeper of all the golde of the princes of Corydan”. Nevertheless, the image of the Prophet given here is not as negative as in most of the earlier Christian texts. Wynkyn de Worde, ed., Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes law called Alcoran (London: De Worde, 1515/1519), without pagination. For discussion of the literary image of the: “legendary Muhammad,” please see the section authored by Michelina Di Cesare in this volume. 10 De Worde was very innovative regarding the use of woodcuts within his books. See Martha W. Driver, “The Illustrated de Worde: An Overview,” Studies in Iconography 17 (1996), 363.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 91

Fig. 12: Untitled, 1515(?). Woodcut print on paper, 94 × 87 mm. Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes lawe called Alcaron. And also it speketh of Machamet the Nygromancer, ed. by Wynkyn de Worde, (London: Wynkny de Worde, 1515 or 1519) fol. 1v.

92 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

the right hand side of the scene, the couple seated modestly before the pulpit on the left appears devout. They turn their backs to the other group and listen intently to the bearded priests on the pulpit. The rosary the woman holds in her hand emphasizes that she is contemplating the religious meaning of the preacher’s message. Thus, the two preachers on either side of the picture are clearly distinguished from one another through the obvious contrast in the behavior of their audiences, who absorb their words and follow them accordingly. To the left only two figures are shown who hear the warnings of the ascetic preachers and seek to follow a religious and virtuous path. To the right the artist has depicted a larger group, enslaved by their own vice and blinded by the promises of a man appearing in the guise of a sixteenth-century churchman, but prompted towards evil by the devilish companion who whispers inspiration. De Worde’s crudely-made image adopts the composition of an earlier woodcut that first appeared in a publication of the Apocalypse by Pseudo-Methodius, an eschatological text written in the seventh century, in which the witnesses Enoch and Elias are depicted preaching against Antichrist.¹¹ This is but one example of how De Worde’s volume is completely reliant on older textual and visual sources and even mixes images of the Prophet commissioned to illustrate the text representative of two different genres. While Mandeville’s text complies with the pattern of the image of the legendary Muhammad, the representation of Muhammad as an Antichrist evokes the image related to the “pseudo-historical” Prophet. This strategic re-use and recombination of texts and images must be understood not only as a way to economize the production process, but also as a method of familiarizing the public to a relatively “new” topic. Since the literary topos of Antichrist has historically been applied to various persons, in addition to Muhammad himself,¹² the printer felt free to use the well-known iconography of Antichrist in the context of Muhammad’s representa-

11 Sebastian Brant, ed., Revelationes divinae a sanctis angelis factae (Basel: Michael Furter, 1498), 55. 12 Referring to Mathew 24, 3–5, Conklin states “Muhammad [...] is seen as an imperfect reflection of Christ. Medieval accounts of the Prophet stress Muhammad’s claim to be the messiah.” See Suzanne Conklin Akbari, “The Rhetoric of Antichrist in Western Lives of Muhammad,” Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations 8, no. 3 (1997), 299. For medieval and reformatory descriptions of Muhammad as Antichrist see Hans Preuss, Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist im späteren Mittelalter, bei Luther und der konfessionellen Polemik (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1906), 81, 204, and 244–245. This apocalyptic image of the Prophet was mostly diffused through texts authored by Riccoldo da Montecroce. For example, in his text entitled Confutatio Alcorani, (Refutation of the Alcoran) from 1300, he calls Muhammad aut Antichristus aut Antichristi percursor (either Antichrist or precursor of Antichrist). Martin Luther, who published a German translation of Riccoldo’s text in 1542, had a different target for this slander. It was not Muhammad who was the real Antichrist but rather the Pope: “Und ich halt den Mahmet nicht für den Endechrist, Er machts zu grob und hat einen kendlichen schwartzen Teuffel, der weder Glauben noch vernunfft betriegen kann […] Aber der Bapst bey uns ist der rechte Endechrist, der hat den hohen, subtilenm schönen, gleissenden Teufel, Der sitzt innwendig in der Christenheit.” See Ricoldo da Montecroce, Verlegung des Alcoran Bruder Richardi Prediger Ordens Anno 1300[…], trans.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 93

tion.¹³ Through this re-combination of visual and textual content—enacted through the technology of printing—different medieval categories governing the representation of the Prophet begin to merge with each other. A further artistic development in the representation of Muhammad as Antichrist can be seen in the Alcorano di Macometto, printed and probably edited by Andrea Arrivabene in 1547 in Venice. This book is fascinating not only because it is the first printed translation of the Qur’an in a vernacular language, but also because of the specificity of its title page, which features a conflation of multiple pictorial vignettes presenting episodes from the life of the Prophet (fig. 13). The six scenes framing the title of the publication, which is written on a curtain positioned in the center of the page, raise critical questions regarding the motivation underlying the creation of such a detailed visual representation of the supposed Prophet’s biography. The motif of the central curtain inscribed with the title of the publication, Alcorano di Macometto, fulfils two distinct functions. Firstly, the inclusion of the curtain alludes to the sacred practice of covering holy images and places and therefore alludes to the religious content of the book.¹⁴ Secondly, it acts as a visual prompt to the viewer, who may imagine the curtain be pulled away by turning the page and reading the ensuing text. This somewhat “apocalyptic” allusion (the Greek word apokálypsis means ‘to uncover’) is not only related to the editor’s intention to reveal the core tenets of Islam, albeit from a Christian perspective, but also it provides a key to interpreting the title page’s pictorial program. The panel in the center is framed with six scenes depicting different episodes from Muhammad’s vita. The rectangular field positioned directly above the title depicts the birth of the Prophet. Two smaller scenes appear on each side. The images on the left represent two miracles: the upper scene features a donkey recognizing the child Muhammad as the messenger of God, while the lower image depicts the episode of Muhammad’s heart being washed by angels. The upper panel on the right shows

Martin Luther (Wittenberg: 1542), without pagination: See also Egil Grisilis, “Luther and the Turks,” Muslim World 64, no. 3 (1974), 183. 13 Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, “Topische Modelle in Theorie und Praxis der Renaissance,” in Visuelle Topoi: Erfindung und tradiertes Wissen in den Künsten der italienischen Renaissance, ed. Ulrich Pfisterer and Max Seidel (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2003), 11–19. He describes the τόποι as criteria of description, which provide a semantic structure that can be widely applied. Although the image of the beardless Muhammad perhaps seems unusual to the modern viewer, the depiction of Muhammad in the guise of a western preacher can be found in earlier illustrated manuscripts. See, for example, Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, transl. Laurent de Premierfait, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Français 236, fol. 184. 14 Regarding the symbolism of the curtain to the concept of revelation in the Christian tradition, see Alessandro Nova, “Hangings, Curtains, and Shutters of Sixteenth-Century Lombard Altarpieces,” in Italian Altarpieces: 1250–1550, ed. Eve Borsook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 177–189, and Johann K. Eberlein, Apparitio Regis – revelatio veritatis. Studien zur Darstellung des Vorhangs in der bildenden Kunst von der Spätantike bis zum Ende des Mittelalters (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1982), 49–96.

94 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 13: Untitled, 1547. Woodcut print on paper, 200 × 144 mm. L’ Alcorano di Macometto, nel quale si contiene la doctrina, la vita, i costumi, e le leggi sue, (Venice: Andrea Arrivabene, 1547), title page.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 95

Muhammad as a boy reciting from a book in front of an older bearded man, and the scene below depicts the victory of an equestrian army while opposing forces flee the battlefield. In the lower and largest rectangular frame, Muhammad stands on a pedestal and preaches to a group of people gathered at the edge of a city. The inclusion of a frame composed of individual pictorial vignettes, traditionally called a cornice istoriata, is rare in Italian book printing of the sixteenth century.¹⁵ Nevertheless, one appears in a printed Bible published in Venice fifteen years earlier, in 1532, by Lucantonio Giunta (fig. 14). Both Arrivabene’s and Giunta’s publications present new translations into Italian. The Bible published by Giunta offers a new rendition of the Old and New Testaments based on the Hebrew and Greek sources, while Arrivabene’s Alcorano claims on its title page to have been translated directly from Arabic. A further compelling detail is that both books were later prohibited by the Catholic Church.¹⁶ Although it cannot be said with certainty whether the woodcut opening the Alcorano was definitively understood as a formal analogy to contemporary bibles, this type of title page was frequently applied to the Christian scriptures in the lands north of the Alps.¹⁷ Undoubtedly the application of a pictured frame suggests a more costly undertaking than that of a non-figurative, generically ornamental frame.¹⁸ The cornice istoriata brings an element of prestige to the volume and offers a visual summary of the book’s content on its very first page. Whereas the title page of Giunta’s Bible presents a sequence of scenes spanning the Old and New Testaments, from the creation of Eve up to the preaching of Saint Paul, the cover page of Arrivabene’s Alcorano is thematically more restricted. Its vignettes focus solely on Muhammad’s life and therefore affirm an exclusive relation between the Qur’an and Muhammad, who was erroneously believed to have authored

15 See Francesco Barberi, Il Frontespizio nel Libro italiano del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento, vol. 1 (Milan: Il Polifilo 1969), 131–132. While Barberi lists only three examples for this type of title page in sixteenth-century Italy, it was much more common north of the Alps, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. See Brian Richardson, “Series of Woodcut Borders in Early Sixteenth-Century Venetian Title Pages,” La Bibliofilia. Rivista di storia del libro e di bibliografia 103, no. 2 (2001), 137–164. 16 See Simonetta Pelusi, ed., Le civiltà del Libro e la stampa a Venezia. Testi sacri, cristiani, islamici dal Quattrocento al Settecento (Padua: Il Poligrafo, 2000), 142–143. 17 Hollstein’s German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts: ca. 1400–1700, ed. Friedrich W. H. Hollstein et. al., 78 vols. (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1954) contains examples of several title pages of Bible editions featuring a “cornice istoriata” produced before 1547. These include Hans Holbein, Das newe Testament, Basel 1523 (Hans Holbein the Younger, vol. 14a, 97) and Hans Holbein the Younger, Biblia, London 1535/1536/1537/1540, (Hans Holbein the Younger, vol. 14a, 194). In the following decades the motif also appears in biblical prints, such as in the work of Virgil Solis (Virgil Solis, vol. 69, BookIllustration III, IV, 16, 34, 156). 18 This primarily was because the labor of the inventor and woodcutter was so exacting, and additionally because the use of such a particular figural woodcut was normally restricted to one theme, inhibiting its reuse in other contexts.

96 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 14: Untitled, 1532. Woodcut print on paper, Height circa 320 mm, La Biblia qvale contiene i sacri libri del vecchio Testamento tradotti nuouamente da la hebraica verita in lingua toscana per Antonio Brucioli […] (Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, 1532), title page.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 97

the Qur’an with the help of a heretical Christian monk.¹⁹ Qur’anic passages comparable to the Old Testament, and even passages referring to Jesus and Mary which link Muhammad to the tradition of earlier Christian and Jewish Prophets affirmed by Islam, are completely omitted. Correspondent to the above-mentioned concept illustrated in the title page, the text of the Qur’an in Arrivabene’s book is prefaced by two different biographies of Muhammad. The first text, entitled La Vera Vita di Macometto,²⁰ presents Muhammad’s life based on Christian writings. The second biography includes four different episodes which are titled La Generatione di Macometto, La Nativiá di Macometto, La Nodritura di Macometto, and La Vita i costumi la forma la statura e l’oppinioni di Macometto, (The Generation of Muhammad, The Birth of Muhammad, The Nurture of Muhammad, and The Life, the Customs, the Form, the Stature, and the Concepts of Muhammad). All of them present the Prophet Muhammad in a messianic light and originally derive from Islamic literary tradition.²¹ Arrivabene even argues that, for the safety of the Christian readers, it would be better first to present the “real” and “condemnable” life of Muhammad and only thereafter, in the second section, his biography according to the Arabic sources.²² Although the editor was apparently afraid of featuring a positive image of Muhammad at the outset of the volume, the anonymous artist of the title page was more daring, and illustrated scenes from the Arabic biographical sources and not from the Christian vita. At first glance this artistic endeavor appears to contradict the general anti-Islamic tenor of the book.²³ Fur-

19 The same strategy to abnegate the prophetic tradition of Muhammad or the divine inspiration in the creation of the Qur’an can be found also in fifteenth century travel reports, which speak of the Qur’an as “his [Muhammad’s] book”. See Elena Giovannini, L’immagine dell’Islam nella letteratura di viagiio tedesca tardomedievale: prospettive a confronto (Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 2005), 64. 20 “La Vera Vita di Macometto tratta dall’historie di cristiani,” in L’Alcorano di Macometto, nel quale si contiene la doctrina, la vita, i costumi, e le leggi sue, comp. Andrea Arrivabene (Venice: Andrea Arrivabene, 1547), II–XI. 21 Arrivabene’s version was based on the Latin translation De generatione Machumet et nutritura eius (On the Generation of Muhammad and his Breeding) made in 1142 by Herman Dalmata, which was published together with a Latin translation of the Qur’an in 1543 by Theodor Bibliander in Basel. Regarding the Muslim sources and the tradition of this text, see James Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1964), 33, 84–88. 22 “Alli pii Lettori,” in Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, Iv, reads: “E poscia che l’animo nostro è di darvi l’Alcorano, loro legge, volgare, & a maggior bellezza del libro, la Geneaologia, Nativita, Notritura, e Vita di Macometto, d’inviolabile osservanza appresso Hismaheliti, hò voluto à sicurezza de pii lettori, prima premonirgli della vera vita di quello [...] a fine che scoprendosi la sporca vita delloro Profeta [...].” 23 This was already recognized by Guy Le Thiec. He sees a difference between the representation of Muhammad in the text and in the title page, in which the latter could be regarded as a step towards a more positive vision of the Prophet. But his interpretation is somewhat vague: “Le frontispice a résisté à l’entreprise de justification: comment introduire la dénonciation de ces fables dans une planche dépourvue encore de légendes? Les pièces ultérieures ont plausiblement eu comme visée de

98 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

thermore, when drawing the scenes, the artist responsible for the woodcut evidently relied on Christian iconography. Indeed, the pictures can be described as presenting episodes based on Islamic textual sources in a Christian “visual grammar”. Just as the iconography of Antichrist was adapted to the representation of Muhammad in De Worde’s Treatyse, the use of well-known Christian iconographic formulas was equally intentional here, and likely meant to help the viewer decipher the unfamiliar stories composing Muhammad’s life. Additionally, the adoption and adaptation of Christian iconographic formulas enabled the viewer to easily identify similarities and differences between the lives of the Christian saints and of the Muslim Prophet. The first scene, depicting Muhammad’s birth, shows strong resemblances to nativity scenes found in Christian hagiographic and biblical narratives. In a domestic interior Muhammad’s mother appears reclining in bed while midwives bathe the baby in a basin. This setting and the composition of the figures alludes to the Christian representations of Anna giving birth to Mary. Moreover, the appearance of a miraculous light on the right-hand side of the picture, and the inclusion of men offering precious gifts to the newborn, recall the iconography of the three Magi in the Adoration of Christ. Nevertheless, the narrative content of the image closely follows the description of La Nativitá di Macometto based on the Arabic sources. For example, the bearded man, who kneels in front of the child and presents him with the “keys of victory, law, and prophecy,” and the three young men with their “heads shining like the sun,” directly relate to the description of this event in the text of the Nativitá, given in the second biography of the Prophet in the book.²⁴ Furthermore, the shining sphere positioned over the infant Muhammad might relate to the divine primordial light (nūr Muhammad) that was transmitted from Adam via his progeny to Muhammad and thus into the world.²⁵ Whereas in Muslim tradition this primordial light emanates directly from

détourner le feu de l’Index, christianisant en quelque sorte inconcevable opération d’une traduction du Coran. À ce frontispice, les Turcs s’ils avaient conquis une place pour leur Prophète, demeuraient encore peut-être de simples auditeurs d’un Saint dont l’épée pourrait séparer la vraie religion de celle ces faux prophètes. Mais une iconographie musulmane se frayait incontestablement une voie dans les Corans imprimés.” See Guy le Thiec‚ ‘Et il y aura un seul troupeau’ – L’immaginaire de la confrontation entre Turcs Chrétiens dans l’art figuratif en France en Italie de 1453 aux années (Lille: A.N.R.T, 1994), 123. 24 “La Natitività di Macometto,” in Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, 7v: “[U]n huomo di bianco vestito […] veniva con tre chiavi, […] e quelle presentò al nato fanciullo [...] la chiave della vittoria, la chiave della legge, e la chiave della Prophetia. Dopò seguivano tre huomini con la faccia piena de raggi simili al Sole.” The commentary provided at the border of the folio claims (unfortunately without further explanation) that the keys received by Muhammad opened the gates of hell, as opposed to the keys of paradise given to Saint Peter. 25 Ibid., 6v: “Si e giunto per ordine lungo de secoli al termine, il quale Iddio haveva prescritto, e veduto, e nel quale doveva nascere al Mondo il lume del Propheta Macometto”.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 99

the Prophet himself, in this scene it is depicted as a celestial phenomenon originating outside of the child completely.²⁶ Although these elements comprehensibly characterize Muhammad’s birth as a holy episode, the picture shows also some peculiarities incompatible with the representation of the birth of a Christian saint. Instead of the painless birth reported in the text, Amina, the Prophet’s mother, looks exhausted, if not depressive.²⁷ Furthermore, the way she rests on the bed resembles a mythological figure with erotic implications, recalling representations of Danae, rather than the chastely covered women in childbirth in Christian iconography. In addition, the woman draped on the bed attracts not only the attention of the viewer, but also that of the angelic looking man who stands at the foot of her bed, who only has eyes for the young mother, instead of being interested in the newborn child. Thus, at second glance, these and the absence of a halo or radient light surronnding Muhammad cast doubt on the sacred character of the birth as it is represented. The next scene in the title page, positioned on the upper left side, also contains strong allusions to the life of Christ, particularly to the well-known iconography of The Flight into Egypt. Here again, select details deviate from the standard Christian iconographic formula: for instance, the man accompanying Muhammad’s forster mother is young in age, and the she-ass kneels on its forelegs and turns its head towards the infant Muhammad. Though not entirely in accordance with the Arabic source, these details allude to an episode narrated in La Nodritura di Macometto in which, at the very start of the journey from Mekka to Benizat, as Halima and Muhammad climb on the donkey, the animal immediately recognizes Muhammad as the messenger of God and kneels down to adore him.²⁸ It is difficult to say how the contemporary viewer would have interpreted this picture, because the iconography is partially familiar and yet has been transformed into something astonishing. Even without referring to the appropriate text, the image could have been understood as representing a sort of miracle. A passage in the book of Isaiah praises the steadfast piety of the donkey,

26 On the Arabic tradition of defining Muhammad according to metaphors of divine light, see Christiane J. Gruber, “Between Logos (Kalima) and Light (Nūr). Representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Painting,” Murqanas 26, (2009), 1–34; Uri Rubin, “Pre-existence and Light. Aspects of the Concept of Nūr Muhammad,” Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975), 62–119; and The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, specifically the entry “Nūr Muhammadī” authored by Uri Rubin. 27 “La Natività di Macometto,” in 6v:“La madre di lui, fe fede, che mai senti per lui dolore alcuno, ne mentre lo porto nel ventre, ne dopò il parto, ne meno partorendolo[...].” 28 “La Nodritura di Macometto,” in Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, 9r: “[E] noi parimente ci partiamo, e sedendo in su l’Asina il marito mi porge il fanciullo, e quella quasi adorandola s’inginocchia[...].” In fact the animal praised the Prophet, speaking with a human voice, only later during the ride. “L’Asina allhora favellando con humane parole, & ad alta voce dice,[...] egli è il Sigillo de Propheti, egli è Signor de Giudici, miglior de primi, e Nuntio di Dio omnipotente, che debbio dir piu.”

100 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

which, in contrast to the people of Israel, “recognizes the cradle of the Lord,”²⁹ conferring upon this animal an ability to sense the Divine.³⁰ Conversely, however, if one interprets the she-ass to be kneeling during the journey, that is, as simply refusing to move, the picture recalls the story of Balaam, whose donkey was, according to the Old Testament, stopped by an invisible angel of God because Balaam’s intention was to curse the people of Israel. Only his she-ass was able to see the angel, which kneeled down and spoke to Balaam with a human voice. Of course, this association would lead to a negative interpretation of the incident represented on the title page.³¹ Thus, by mingling different iconographies, the artist deliberately created a somewhat ambiguous visual representation of the narrated wonder. The next vignette shows the washing of Muhammad’s heart, a miracle which La Nodritura di Macometto states occurred in Muhammad’s early childhood. The text explains that while the young Muhammad was guarding sheep, three men came, opened his breast, and purified his heart in preparation for his future call to Prophethood. Although the source for the iconography of the scene can be found in both biographies of the book, the artist has again adhered to the Arabic version. This can be seen by the inclusion of three angels and the mountainous landscape, which are only mentioned in the Islamic text.³² The artistic rendering of the story required the creative interpretation of the text; neither is there any Christian iconography the artist could have adopted to create the composition, nor is there any detectable inspiration drawn from pictorial themes and subjects common to Islamic book painting. The panel shows the huge figure of the Archangel Gabriel accompanied by his two attendants. The Angel kneels next to the

29 Isaiah 1.3: “The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” 30 The hagiographies of Saint Anthony of Padua, which were popular throughout Europe, also recount the story of a donkey praising the body of Christ in the sacred host. On the diffusion of the cult of Saint Anthony, see Conrad de Mandach, Saint Antoine de Padoue et l’art italien (Paris: Renouard, H. Laurens, 1898). On the miracle of the mule, see ibid., 230–238. 31 See the fourth Book of Moses, 22.21–38. I would like to thank Ittai Weinryb for referring me to this episode. In the fifteenth century, the iconography of Balaam and his hesitating donkey was dispersed by Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles) published for the first time in 1493 and by the “Leien Bibel” printed in Strasburg in 1540, which included a woodcut of this scene. 32 The artist probably chose to adhere to the Arabic text because the description is much more detailed. “La vera vita di Macometto,” VIIv, reads: “[D]iremo anchora d’alcuni suoi fualosi [sic] miracoli, quantunque non s’havesse testimonio alcuno, & il primo, quando essendo fanciullo, e ne pascoli solo gli fu aperto il petto dall’angelo Gabriello suo custode, e trattogli la fece, ò non so che di cattivo attaccato al cuore […].” In La Nodritura di Macometto, on folio 9v, Mohammed states that: “Tre huomini cavandomi de Pascholi mi condussero qui [in cima ad uno Monte], il primo mi sparò fino al bellico sanza farmi punto di male, e mi lavo le viscere, e fecele bianche come neve, il secondo mi parti il cuore in due parti, cavando del mezzo un grano negro, & gettandolo via, disse questa è la portione del Diavolo, Il terzo mi rimesse le viscere nel ventre, e ritornommi come voi vedete ch’io sono.”

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 101

nude body of the young Muhammad while stretching his hands towards the child’s open chest. The “operation” takes place in an enclosed and narrow rocky landscape. Within this almost claustrophobic setting, the actions of the huge figures of the angels seem somewhat threatening: Gabriel reaches into the open breast cavity of the unconscious child, while the angel behind him ostentatiously holds up the removed heart. The anxious atmosphere surrounding the act is enhanced by the tousled hair of Gabriel, which sticks up from his forehead in curls resembling two horns. The hair of Muhammad is similarly disheveled, and the artist has drawn agitated crisscross hatchings over the breast and the head of the boy. The strongest doubt about the sacred nature of this heavenly intervention is provoked by the cross in the foreground, which consists of two boughs with a snake-like figure leaning on the crossbar. The inclusion of the cross is a peculiar detail because it is not found in either of the biographies included in the volume and seems to be an invention of the artist. This motif is ambiguous, but the intentional inclusion of the Christian symbol of Christ’s suffering and final victory underscores that the artist was not satisfied with merely reproducing a narrative based on Arabic sources. In sum, the artist turns the sacred character and ceremonial aspect of the purification of Muhammad’s heart into a direful and ambiguous scene.³³ Indeed, the editor of the book was fascinated by this episode. In his commentary to the relevant text, he presumes that the “washing of the heart” prefigures Muhammad’s later punishment in hell, as it is described in Dante’s Divina Commedia, in which Muhammad’s body is cleaved from his chin to his genitals.³⁴ It can be suggested then, that the creator of the woodcut, who shows the opening of the boy’s torso as a frightening act, placing his nude body right in front of a cross, may also have been aware of the characterization of Muhammad in Dante’s Commedia and tried to represent the story in such a way that it remains unclear for the viewer, whether the opening of the child’s breast is an act of divine grace or of punishment.

33 According to Islamic tradition, the washing of the heart prepares Muhammad for his future prophetic office and is therefore an act of solemnity. See Harris Birkeland, The Legend of the Opening of Muhammed’s Breast, Oslo 1955. On the earliest known visual representation of this story in Ilkhanid book painting, see Priscilla P. Soucek, “The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated Versions,” in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World: Papers from a Colloquium in Memory of Richard Ettinghausen, ed. Priscilla P. Soucek (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 193–218. 34 La Nodritura di Macometto, 9v states: “Forse augura questo scrittore che Macometto sia cosi sfesso dal mento in sin dove si trulla, come scismattico, del quale Dante nel canto XXVIII. del Inferno, e nel nostro argomento sopra quello [si parló.]” Whereas the pertinant section of Canto XXVIII in Dante’s Inferno reads: “Già veggia, per mezzul perdere o lulla, com’io vidi un, così non si pertugia, rotto dal mento infin dove si trulla. [...] Mentre che tutto in lui veder m’attacco, guardommi e con le man s’aperse il petto, dicendo: “Or vedi com’io mi dilacco! vedi come storpiato è Mäometto!” See Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia: Inferno, ed. Cesare Gaboli (Turin: Einaudi, 2004), Canto 28:30–31.

102 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

The next panel on the right presents Muhammad reading from a book in front of an unidentified figure, most likely his teacher, who is depicted greeting and approaching the boy. The scene takes place in a hilly landscape with a cloudy sky. The combination of the two figures is puzzling on an iconographical level because there is no passage in the book to which it can be definitively related. On the one hand, it corresponds to the story of the hermit, whom Muhammad met on his first caravan-trip to Syria. But this story, from Islamic tradition, does not precisely mention that Muhammad was taught by the hermit.³⁵ Furthermore, in Islamic tradition Muhammad is customarily described as illiterate, so that on a literal level, it would make no sense from a Muslim point of view that the child Muhammad is reciting from a book. In order to defame the Prophet, multiple Christian writings in circulation from medieval times up to the nineteenth century recount a story in which Muhammad did not receive divine revelations but was instead instructed by a heretical monk, variously called Nestorius, Sergius or Bahira.³⁶ Yet, in this story, which the Alcorano recounts in its first apologetic biography, Muhammad is described as a mature man and not as a boy.³⁷ Although the literary source that inspired this picture cannot be clearly identified, it again sustains parallels to the life of Christ, namely the story of the twelve-year-old Christ, who astonished the priests of the Temple with his wisdom.³⁸ The scene on the lower right side represents a battle of two equestrian armies. Unfortunately it is impossible to name the specific battle or to identify the soldiers depicted.³⁹ In any case, the scene functions as a prelude for the last and lowest panel in the title page, in which Muhammad appears victorious, dressed in an ancient military uniform preaching to the inhabitants of a city. This lower panel is in fact the crux of the whole biographic sequence of Muhammad. Whereas in the other scenes the saintly and Christ-like elements of his biography are emphasized, the final picture instead depicts the Prophet as an earthly and triumphant figure, who came to power by the use of his sword.⁴⁰ Furthermore, the last scene provides the key to under-

35 This story was also known throughout the Latin West since the medieval period. See Minou Reeves, Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making (Reading, United Kingdom: Garnet Publishing, 2000), 105–106. 36 See Alessandro D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto in Occidente (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1994), 39–40 and Almond, Heretic and Hero, 68. 37 Following La Vera Vita a certain Surgio, a Nestorian monk, became his mentor. See “La Vera Vita di Macometto,” 3r–4v. 38 Luke 2.46–47. 39 Both biographies speak of several battles which were fought by Muhammad. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the renaissance style of this battle scene. There are several other interesting aspects of this scene, such as the wounded man lying on his back and the partial representation of the flight of the riders to the right in the scene, which speak again for the woodcutters ability to create an idea of dramatic movement and in this case of the cruelty of war in such a small composition. 40 The contrast between the pacifistic content of Christ’s teachings and Muhammad’s supposed inclination towards violence is also mentioned in the text. The editor comments on a passage that

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 103

stand the cornice istoriata’s entire visual message. What appears at first glance to be another saintly vision recalling the iconography of Saint Paul, who is also often represented as a preacher with a sword in his hand, such as in the last vignette of Giunta’s Bible (fig. 14), culminates in the totally different interpretation of Muhammad as Antichrist.⁴¹ The exposure of Muhammad as Christ’s anti-figure is achieved by various visual elements. The first is the erotic atmosphere surrounding the figure of the Prophet in this image, which is suggested by the tightly fitting garment of the festaiuolo and the homoerotic undertone of a couple of men depicted at the foot of the preacher’s platform.⁴² The second element involves the elegant podium, from which the victorious Muhammad delivers a speech, which likely refers to the representation of Muhammad as an idol and to the pictorial tradition of the depiction of the

describes Muhammad as having success sometimes with words but more often with the sword: La “Religione di Macometto [è] fondata i[n] violentia, e crudeltà, e non in carità & amore.” See “La Vita i costumi la forma la statura e l’oppinioni di Macometto,” in Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, 11r. The motif of the sword as the definitive instrument of Islamic power is already entrenched in the thirteenth century. See D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto, 58. In the later iconography the sword becomes one of the standard attributes of Muhammad. The letter supposedly sent by Pope Pius II (r. 1458–1464) to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446 / 1451–1481) emphasizes how Muhammad planned to disseminate his teachings by using violence. See Enea S. Piccolomini, “Epistola a Maometto. Pio Episcopo servo di Dio augura all’illustre Maometto, sultano dei Turchi, di temere ed amare il nome di Dio,” in Il Corano e la tiara. L’epistola a Maometto di Enea Silvio Piccolomini (papa Pio II), ed. Luca D’Ascia (Bologna: Pendragon, 2001), 221–222. 41 Despite the similarities between the last scenes in the frontispieces of Giunta’s Bible (fig. 14) and of the Alcorano (fig. 13), the sword in Muhammad’s hand cannot be interpreted as a direct parallel to the iconography of Saint Paul, as Le Thiec proposes. He seems to interpret the image only on a superficial level, which does give the impression of a likeness between the two figures. Le Thiec states “L’iconographie qui reprend donc plusieurs scènes de la vie de Mahomet, ne rendrait pas compte de la tension perceptible dès l’épître dédicatoire (à moins, comme il a déjà été indiqué, de voir dans le prédicateur des Turcs à l’épée, au bandeau inférieur du frontispice, un saint Paul apôtre des Gentils).” See Le Thiec, “Et il y aura,” 119. 42 The audience of the sermon in Wynkyn de Worde’s “Antichrist” woodcut showed comparably inappropriate behavior (fig. 12). It was a commonly held prejudice against Islam that its adherents engaged in licentious sexual behavior. The Turks and the Ottoman Sultans were especially accused of cultivating homosexual practices. See Alberto Saviello, “Felix Petancic’s Historia Turcica – A Central European View of the Ottoman Empire?” in Osmanischer Orient und Ostmitteleuropa. Perzeptionen und Interaktionen in den Grenzzonen zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Robert Born (forthcoming). Arrivabene’s book itself describes the Turks as “molto imbrattati del vitio della sodomia, in modo tale, che non è poßibile per alcuna via, se ne possano astenere. Et perche tutti sono macchiati di questa pece, fra loro non ne danno punitione, & hanno nel loro Coraam, che quelli, che usano questo vitio, sono perduti in questo mondo & dell’anima, & del corpo: & in alcuni libri restati di Mahometto, dicono haverne veduta chiaramente la isperienita.” See “In che è fondata la legge Mahomettana,” in Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, XLVIv. In some ways the picture contradicts the text, because the relevant text concludes that Muhammad had damned homosexuality.

104 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Antichrist preaching from a podium to the citizens of Jerusalem.⁴³ But the most decisive elements included by the artist to underline the supposedly evil nature of the Prophet are his widely opened mouth and the two horns placed on his head, which clearly suggest his “diabolic” character. The moment the “true” nature of the Prophet is revealed, the hanging curtain at the very center of the title page is metaphorically opened, and the adjoining scenes of the seemingly angelic and miraculous stories of the Prophet’s life expose their treacherous character. Although, as mentioned above, there is a long tradition of representing Muhammad as Antichrist that pre-dates Arrivabene’s book, it is interesting to question his motivation in emphasizing this topos through the inclusion of such a sophisticated visual program. First, however, it should be clarified that the claim, sustained by the book’s title (Alcorano di Macometto[…]Tradotto nuovamente dall’Arabo in lingua Italiana), that the translation was made directly from the Arabic text is false. In fact, the whole book relies on the Latin edition, Machumetis Saracenorum Principis vita ac doctrina omnis (The Life and the Entire Doctrine of Muhammad, Ruler of the Saracens), which was published four years prior by Theodor Bibliander in Basel.⁴⁴ The translation, edited by Bibliander himself, who was a Protestant Professor of the Old Testament, was the first Latin Qur’an ever printed.⁴⁵ But even Bibliander’s book did

43 The characterization of Muslims as worshippers who adored Muhammad in the form of an idol appears in the Song of Roland in the twelfth century, which states “Dâ wârne siben hundert apgot, Machmet was der hêrest unter in.” [There were seven hundred idols, Machmet was the noblest among them]. See Dieter Kartschoke, ed., Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrads, Mittelhochdeutsch – Neuhochdeutsch (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2001), 3492–3493. See also John V. Tolan, “Muslims as Pagan Idolaters in the Chronicles of the First Crusade,” in Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other, ed. David R. Blanks and Michael Frasetto (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 97–117. The practice of idolatry was traditionally understood as a sin akin to adultery and fornication, so that the statue-like representation of the Prophet and the leisurely behaviour of his followers in the picture form a coherent image. See the entry for “Abgötterei” (idolatry) in BibelLexikon, ed. Herbert Haag, 2nd ed. (Einsiedeln: Benzinger, 1968), col. 9, authored by Paul van Imschoot. See also the chapter by Michelina Di Cesare in this volume. 44 Already the Dutch scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540–1609) had recognized that the translation was based on the Corpus Toletanum. See Bobzin, “Latin Translations of the Koran,” 197. The translation from Latin into Italian was completed by the Catholic priest Giovanni Castrodardo. See Pier M. Tommassino, “Giovanni Battista Castrodardo Bellunese traduttore dell’Alcorano di Macometto (Arrivabene, 1547),” Oriente moderno. Rivista d’informazione e di studi per la diffusione della conoscenza della cultura dell’oriente sopratutto musulmano 88, no. 1 (2008), 15–40. 45 Although Bibliander and his printer Oporinus resisted the city council publishing the first edition, the book must have been a monetary success. A second edition, featuring minor changes, was issued in Basel in 1550. See Carlo de Frede, La prima traduzione italiana del Corano sullo sfondo dei rapporti tra Cristianità e Islam nel Cinquecento (Naples: Instituto universitario orientale, 1967), 10, and Hartmut Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation, Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Arabistik und Islamkunde in Europa (Beirut: Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1995), 262.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 105

not offer a new translation from the Arabic, because its text was based on the Latin translation made in 1143 in Toledo by the commission of Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of Cluny.⁴⁶ The complete history of European Qur’an translations is too vast to be discussed here. Nevertheless, it is crucial to consider the historic ambience in which the first printed Qur’an translation originated. Bibliander’s so-called “Basel Affair” sheds unique light on the perception and instrumentalization of the Qur’an in the age of Reformation.⁴⁷ Bibliander’s Qur’an translation not only was meant to refute Islam and to inform the reader about the menacing Ottoman Empire (agendas made clear by its introductory texts), but also became a potent rhetorical device deployed within inner-Christian theological debates.⁴⁸ Both sides, Catholics and Protestants, regarded the Qur’an as the “blueprint” of all heresies, against which all other erroneous beliefs could be exposed and judged.⁴⁹ According to this understanding of the Qur’an, Martin Luther emphasized multiple similarities between Muhammad and the Papacy,⁵⁰ and, in turn, propaganda in support of the Catholic Church commonly associated Protestant thought with Islamic teachings.⁵¹ As a follower of the Waldensian gospel, which was branded and persecuted as heretical by the Roman Church since the thirteenth century, Andrea Arrivabene himself became directly involved in Christian religious conflict and was actually accused of heresy.⁵² However, his Alcorano does not contain an attack against the Catholic Church and was not raised in the context of the accusation.⁵³ Published in

46 For a discussion of the translation of 1143, see Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable. 47 The best scholarly analysis of this topic remains Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitlater der Reformation. 48 See Harry Clark, “The Publication of the Koran in Latin: A Reformation Dilemma,” Sixteenth Century Journal 15, no. 1 (1984), 3–12. 49 Luther’s main interest in the Qur’an was a “polemische[ ] Gegenüberstellung von Papstkirche und Türkenreich: den Koran in seinem wahren Charakter zu erkennen ist so wichtig wie die Auseinandersetzung mit Allem anderen innerhalb der Kirche, was dem wahren Evangelium entgegensteht.” See Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation, 15. Bobzin explains the passage thus: “Erst die genaue Kenntnis des Korans ermöglicht ja die zutreffende Diagnose der Feinde im inneren der Kirche: das sind in erster Linie das Papsttum zu Rom, und in zweiter Linie die Anhänger Thomas Müntzers, die Widertäufer und Antitrinitaner.” Ibid., 18. The same exploitation of the Qur’an can still be found in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. For example, in Humphrey Prideaux’s book The True Nature of Imposture fully display’d in the Life of Mahomet published in 1696, Prideaux used the Qur’an to prove the veracity of Christian belief in contrast to the contemporary movement of the Deists. 50 See Ricoldo da Montecroce, Verlegung des Alcoran, chap. VII, and Egil Grislis, “Luther and the Turks,” Muslim World 64, no. 3 (1974), especially 183. 51 To expose similarities between Protestants and Muslims was also the aim of the works of the Catholic writer Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter. See Bobzin, Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation, 7, 356–358. 52 Frede, La prima traduzione, 40. 53 Ibid., 42–43.

106 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Venice, the specific nature of Arrivabene’s book is best understood in regard to the contemporary historic-political context of the Venetian Republic. Firstly, it must be emphasized that the introduction to the volume stresses that the main purpose of the book was to help readers achieve and maintain a peaceful symbiosis with Muslim potentates.⁵⁴ The author’s suggestion of fruitful coexistence with the Muslim states, namely the Ottomans, is consistent with the general tenor of the political stance of the Venetian Republic, in which religious differences were in most cases considered to be of less importance than profitable trade connections. Secondly, the Alcorano can be described as a manifestation of emotional ambivalence, that is, of coexisting fear and attraction, with which the Venetians perceived the Muslim “Other”.⁵⁵ The book not only reflects the European fascination for Muslim themes, it introduces itself as the new authority on Islam: its authenticity is underscored in its title, which advertises that in addition to the Qur’an translation itself, it also contains information on the Islamic costumes and laws. Furthermore, the title page engages the viewer through the lavish complexity of the cornice istoriata—initially attracting the attention through the presentation of visual similarities between Muhammad’s biography and the lives of Christian saints—only to subvert these parallels, in the very last scene, wherein Muhammad is sensationally depicted as an antichrist. Thirdly, the title page’s revelatory rhetoric corresponds with contemporary modes of representing Islam, especially when compared to one of the most widely read and highly estimated examples of Turcica, a genre which was very popular at the end of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth centuries. This is the Tractatus de moribus, condictionibus et nequicia turcorum (Treatise on the Customs, Living Conditions, and Wickedness of the Turks) of George of Hungary. This text is pertinent to any discussion of the Alcorano because it was also part of Bibliander’s edition of the Qur’an—which, because of his extensive supplementary material concerning Muslim belief and the Turks, was named an “Encyclopedia of Islam”—and must therefore have been known to Arrivabene. In the report of his prolonged captivity in the Ottoman Empire, where he was held for twenty years, George of Hungary warns the reader against the socalled Muslim deception, declaring that although he had experienced the Ottomans as a morally virtuous and highly cultivated people, he perceives their laudable attributes to be a fraudulent façade, through which the devil tries to persuade Christians

54 In his introduction Arrivabene argues that the knowledge of Muslim practices is pivotal for this purpose. Arrivabene, L’Alcorano di Macometto, (unpaginated) reads: “meglio come haversi da governare in ogni evento, ò di pace ò di guerra che possa nascere, non essendo di piccola importanza a il saper si di maniera portarsi con un tal potentato, ch’egli non sia piu nimico.” 55 This dichotomy in Western European perceptions of the Ottoman was described by Hans Joachim Kissling and subsequently adopted by others scholars. See Hans J. Kissling, “Türkenfurcht und Türkenhoffnung im 15./16. Jahrhundert. Zur Geschichte eines ‘Komplexes’,” Südost-Forschungen. Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Kultur und Landeskunde Südosteuropas 23 (1964), 1–18.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 107

to renounce their belief.⁵⁶ The warning against the attractiveness of Islam was of contemporary importance. Not only did George of Hungary feel in “danger” of converting to Islam, a matter he strongly regretted after his escape, but also this was not uncommon during the sixteenth century, when cohorts of Christians, who were often experienced and specialized laborers, such as seafarers, brass founders, and other technicians, defected to the Ottoman Empire and occasionally even embraced Islam.⁵⁷ This trend was considered to be particularly threatening to the Venetian Republic, because its maritime empire was sustained by sound knowledge of seafaring and navigation, which could easily be lost through the unchecked migration of skilled workers to the rival Ottoman Empire. Thus, it seems that Arrivabene’s Alcorano adopted George of Hungary’s rhetoric regarding the deceptive allure of Muslim belief, a point which is reinforced through the visual magnetism of the volume’s complex title page. Moreover, the elaborate nature of the cover illustration was undoubtedly intended both to elevate and enhance the popularity of the book, and also to advise Venetian readers to abide by their State and their Christian faith. The next major transformations in the depiction of the Prophet do not emerge in published translations of the Qur’an but rather in illustrated historical works. Although the expressions “profeta dei Turchi,” “Prophet der Türken,” or “prophète des Turcs” became synonyms for Muhammad, and despite the fact that the Qur’an was commonly referred to as the “Turkish law” and the “Türkenbibel” in the fifteenth

56 George of Hungary sees in Muhammad a forerunner of Antichrist and describes the attractiveness of Islam and the Ottoman Empire as the work of the devil. See Georgius de Hungaria, Tractatus de Moribus condictionibus et nequicia turcorum [1481]. Traktat über die Sitten, die Lebensverhältnisse und die Arglist der Türken, ed. Reinhard Klockow (Köln: Böhlau, 1993), 42 and 165, and Albrecht Classen, “The World of the Turks Described by an Eye-Witness: Georgius de Hungaria’s Dialectical Discourse on the Foreign World of the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Early Modern History 7, no. 3–4 (2003), 277. Regarding the European experience of the dangerous “seductiveness” of Islam, see also Giovannini, L’immagine dell’Islam, 193–200. 57 Eric R. Dursteller notes that “[t]he period from 1500 to 1650 represents the golden age of the renegade; their numbers were so great that the flow from Christianity to Islam has been characterized as a “haemorrhage of men” and a “religious nomadism.” See Dursteller, Venetians in Constantinople: Nation, Identity, and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 112. For more detailed statistics see Lucia Rostagno, Mi faccio turco: esperienze ed immagini dell’Islam nell’Italia moderna (Roma: Istituto per l’Oriente C.A. Nallino, 1983). Carlo De Frede, who completed the authoritative analysis of Andrea Arrivabene’s Alcorano saw it as a product also made for the numerous Italian renegades who converted to the Muslim faith while making their fortunes in the Ottoman Empire. Frede writes “[d]unque il numero e la frequenza grandissima dei rinnegati (tra i quali i più erano provenienti dai domini veneti) poteva facilmente sollecitare un editore veneziano a offrire loro, sul mercato librario, un testo volgare della Scrittura ch’essi ufficialmente avrebbero dovuto imparare.” See Frede, La prima traduzione, 52.

108 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

century, it was not until the very end of the sixteenth century that the Prophet was first represented in the guise of an Ottoman sovereign.⁵⁸ The first printed image of Muhammad in distinctively Ottoman dress is to be found in the Acta Mechmeti I. Saracenorum Principis (Records of Mehmed I. Ruler of the Saracens) published by Johann Theodor and Johann Israel de Bry in 1597 in Frankfurt (fig. 15).⁵⁹ The book contains a history of the Islamic dynasties commencing with the foundation of Islam during the life of Muhammad and concluding with prophecies of the future downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad is described as a historical figure, given the name “Mehmet I” and is depicted according to conventional representations of Turkish sultans, wearing a moustache and dressed in a lavish royal caftan and a large Ottoman turban.⁶⁰ The renaming of Muhammad as Mehmet I also enacted a dynastic link with the reigning sultan Mehmet III (r. 1595–1603) under whom, according to the predictions contained in the second part of the book, the Ottoman Empire will collapse.⁶¹ The entire engraved title page expresses the ongoing enmity between the Muslim and Christian Empires. This antagonism is chiefly expressed in the strict opposition of the figure of Muhammad on the left versus a Byzantine emperor on the right side. The opposition of both sides is echoed in the upper portion of the page, which features the confrontation of a janissary and a Christian knight, both dressed in contemporary military uniforms. In the lower section of the page, the dichotomy is manifested again through the juxtaposition of male and female demonic figures. The central cartouche,

58 A precursor to visual representations of Muhammad wearing Ottoman cloth can be found in an illuminated manuscript of Robert of Ketton’s Latin Translation of the Qur’an, produced at the beginning of the sixteenth century. See Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. lat. 3670, fol. 1r. 59 The De Bry brothers functioned both as editors of the book and the producers of its cooper engravings. For a more detailed description of the scenes illustrating the biography of Muhammad and a consideration of its sources, see Le Thiec, ‘Et il y aura’, 123–130; Ulrike Ilg, “Vom Reisebericht zum ethnographischen Kompendium. Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte von Nicolas de Nicolays ,Quatre Premiers Livres des Navigations et Peregrations orientales’ (1567),” in Text und Bild in Reiseberichten des 16. Jahrhunderts. Westliche Zeugnisse über Amerika und das Osmanische Reich, ed. Ulrike Ilg (Venice: Marsilio, 2008), 161–192. While the book’s title omits an author’s name, in a contemporary document it is reported that the original German version of the book was written by a man called Michael Julius, whose biography has so far not been studied at length. See Michael van Groesen, The Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590–1634) (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 403–404. 60 This image strongly recalls representations of Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566), under whom the Ottoman Empire had its “golden age”, and who was the subject of numerous images produced by European artists. See Alberto Saviello, “El Gran Turco – Der ‘maskierte’ Sultan in der italienischen Druckgraphik des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World: Trade, Gift Exchange and Artistic Transfer, ed. Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli and Gerhard Wolf (Venice: Marsilio, 2010), 213– 226. 61 The only difference made between the Prophet Muhammad and the rulers of the Ottoman dynasty on the title page is that it names the Sultan Mehmet III and his people as the new (“modernum”) Turks.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 109

Fig. 15: Johann Theodor de Bry, untitled, 1597. Engraving on paper, 189 × 147 mm. I. Acta Mechmeti I Saracenorvm principis: natales, vitam, victorias, imperivm et mortem eius ominosam complectentia; genealogia successorum eiusdem ad modernum vsq[ue] Mechmetem III. […] (Frankfurt a.M.: De Bry, 1597), title page.

110 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

positioned between two opposing sides, adheres to this binary composition through the positioning of a male and a female captive on either side of an allegorical figure of victory. Within this antagonistic structure, Muhammad plays the definitive role of the “fraudster”. This is accentuated by the bird that flies close to his left ear. This scene reflects the legend of the tamed dove⁶² and is comparable to the iconography of Pope Gregory the Great, who is often shown in illustrated manuscripts recording the words of the Holy Ghost which speaks to him in form of a dove placed next to his ear.⁶³ Again, as in the title page of Arrivabene’s Alcorano, Muhammad is represented according to established Christian iconography in order to suggest and to simulate holiness. The major difference between Muhammad’s depictions on the Alcorano and on this title page, however, is that Muhammad is presented here as a cunning “impostor” and not in the eschatological garments of Antichrist. It is equally important to explore why the artist depicted Muhammad beside a Byzantine emperor almost one hundred and fifty years after the fall of the eastern Roman Empire in 1453. The inclusion of a Byzantine emperor seems to refer to the second half of the book, in which Basileus Leo the Wise (r. 889–911) is listed among the foreseers of the future demise of the Ottoman Empire.⁶⁴ Accordingly, it is plausible that the print shows Leo the Wise as the emperor, who gazes pointedly at Muhammad, seemingly aware of the Prophet’s supposedly fraudulent holiness, reflecting the emperor’s prophetic vision of the doom of Islam. Thus, optical vision is presented on the title page as an empirical instrument to perceive truth—a point that is not only important for the richly illustrated products of the De Bry printing shop in general, but also in the assessment of the visual representation of Muhammad specifically. While Muhammad is characterized as producing a deceptive image of himself, and thus as a creator of a false image more broadly, it is the aim of the book, which interpolates the Prophet’s biography with further detailed engravings representing the

62 Please see the chapter authored by Michelina Di Cesare in this volume. 63 The story of this faked miracle first appears in the Libellus in partibus transmarinis de Machometi fallaciis (Little Book of Machomet’s fallacies in overseas) and was dispersed across a wide area throughout the thirteenth century through its inclusion in Vincent de Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale (Historical Mirror) and the Legenda aurea (Golden Legend) by Jacopo de Voragine. See D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto, 59 and Annette Seitz, “Darstellungen Mohammeds und seiner Glaubenslehre in lateinischen Weltchroniken,” in Mittelalter im Labor: Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft, ed. Michael Borgolte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2008), 116–130. 64 See I. Acta Mechmeti I Saracenorvm principis: natales, vitam, victorias, imperivm et mortem eius ominosam complectentia; genealogia successorum eiusdem ad modernum vsq[ue] Mechmetem III. […] (Frankfurt a.M.: De Bry, 1597), 59–96. This part of the book is a copy of the Vaticinium Severi, et Leonis imperatorum in quo videtur finis turcarum in praesenti eorum imperatore, una cum allis nonnullis in hac re vaticiniis that was published in 1596 by Pietro Maria Marchetti in Brescia.”

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 111

deeds of his life, to look behind the supposedly misleading surface of Muhammad’s persona and to unveil his prodigious nature.⁶⁵ The antagonistic structure of the title page’s composition, which expresses hope for the fall of Islam and an ultimate Christian victory, clearly indicates that the perceptions of Islam and of the Prophet at this specific moment in history were largely influenced by the unease surrounding the contemporary confrontation between Christian Europe and the Muslim Ottoman Empire. A subsequent development in the representation of the Prophet Muhammad in Western Europe appears in Michel Baudier’s Histoire général de la religion des Turcs (Comprehensive History of the Religion of the Turks) from 1625 (fig. 16).⁶⁶ This illustration provides the readers with one of the earliest depictions of the Prophet according to the conventions of contemporary portraiture, where he is presented as an individual, albeit one still dressed in a sumptuous Turkish costume.⁶⁷ The copper engraving is located at the very beginning of his biography and is followed by a description of Islam. What is novel about this image is the fact that the illustrator did not portray Muhammad according to a prescribed role or topos, but rather aimed at presenting Muhammad’s individual nature or personality, at least so it appears at first glance. Furthermore, the huge bust-length portrait, which commands more than half of the page, imparts a physical and almost tangible presence. This is achieved not only by the shadow casting over the back wall, creating the illusion of space and temporality, but also and mostly by the central cap (taj) placed at the very top of the voluminous turban. The cap seems to overlap the picture’s frame and, thus, leaves the impression that Muhammad protrudes from the two-dimensional surface of the picture into the actual space of the viewer. In contrast to this strongly realistic—perhaps even hyper-realistic—manner of representation, and the three-dimensional quality that characterizes this image, Muham-

65 A more detailed discussion of the emblematic nature of the illustrations in De Bry’s Acta, which presents the life of Muhammad in seven further engravings, will be addressed in the forthcoming book by Alberto Saviello. 66 The book was published again with this portrait in 1632 and in 1641. 67 In fact, the picture included in Baudier’s text is only the second representation of Muhammad according to the conventions of the genre of portraiture. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Christoffel van Sichem designed a face of Muhammad which was included in 1608 in a catalogue of heretics titled Apocalypsis insignium aliquot Haeresiarcharum (Apocalypsis, or, The Revelation of Certain Notorious Advancers of Heresie), attributed to Hendrik van Haestens. However, the picture in the Apocalypsis was created mainly to provide a grotesque and repugnant view of the Prophet. Thus, Haestens’s representation of Muhammad hardly corresponds to the definition of a portrait as a “self-referential” representation of an individual. For discussion of the criteria defining portraiture as a genre, see Gottfried Böhm, Bildnis und Individuum: Über den Ursprung der Porträtmalerei in der italienischen Renaissance (München: Prestel-Verlag, 1985). For the Islamic tradition of Muhammad’s portrait, see Oleg Grabar and Mika M. Natif, “The Story of Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad,” Studia Islamica 96 (2003), 19–38.

112 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 16: MAHOMET PROPHETE DES TVRCS, 1625(?). Engraving on paper, Height of page ca. 24 mm, engraving 147 × 152 mm. Michel Baudier, Histoire générale de la religion des Turcs, Avec la naissance, la vie, et la mort, de leur prophete Mahomet, et les actions des quatre premiers Caliphes qui l’ont suiui […] (Paris: C. Cramoisy, 1625), 7.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 113

mad’s gaze is less expressive. He appears contemplative and somewhat unaware of the external world, and there is a hint of melancholy in his eyes. Portrayed in this state of self-reflection, the image allows the viewer to stare at the Prophet unchallenged and without any fear or hesitation. And yet, his thoughtful expression confers a level of dignity to his image. Moreover, his facial expression and his physiognomy, such as the strongly contracted eyebrows, the forcefully pressed wrinkles in his forehead, and the crinkles at the root of his nose, are counterbalanced by the presence of a subtle smile imparting a level of vivacity, interiority and kindness.⁶⁸ However, the text that accompanies this image claims that Muhammad was a fraud and negates his prophethood. Therefore, the positive impression of the Prophet’s character reinforced through the study of this carefully executed “portrait” actually contradicts the text, which clearly designates Muhammad as a “professional impostor”. But what is the rationale behind the invention of a positive portrait of the Prophet, when it is promptly negated by the text, obviating the visual content of the image? To answer this question it is necessary to analyze the interrelation between text and image specific to this particular folio. This contradiction between a favorable visual representation and slanderous textual description is deliberate, in which text and image are designed to transmit a message together, acting as a pair. When read in tandem with the text, the sympathetic and honorable impression of Muhammad transmitted by his image acts as a sort of “proof” of the Prophet’s alleged talent for fraudulent deception to conceal his supposedly negative character behind a distinguished visual appearance.⁶⁹ Compared to the complicit nature of the visual impression, which presents a positive perception of the Prophet, the text functions not only as the medium for the transmission of knowledge but also as the arbiter of truth for the Christian reader. Furthermore, the composition of the engraving seems to enact an intentional comparison with miraculous images of Christ, the acheiropoieta, a view which is supported not only by the conventional characterization of Muhammad as an Antichrist, but also by some physiognomic features of Muhammad’s representation. This includes his bifurcated beard, which appears in many depictions of Moses as well as in traditional representations of Christ in the Mandylion and in the Vera Icon. Thus, already the form of the beard indicates Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. In addition, the small mouth, the line of the eyebrows, and the unfocused view of the Prophet insinuate the famous pictures of Christ (fig. 17).⁷⁰

68 See Böhm, Bildnis und Individuum, 9–34. 69 The motif of the physically attractive traitor is found throughout in medieval literature. See for example the The Song of Roland, 1960–1961. 70 A vast bibliography exists on this topic. See, for example, Gerhard Wolf, Schleier und Spiegel: Traditionen des Christusbildes und die Bildkonzepte der Renaissance (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2002).

114 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 17: Mandylion, Second half of the 12th century, 770 × 710 mm. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 115

The illusionistic quality of the engraving can also be interpreted as a direct allusion to the miraculous images of Christ. Just as these images characteristically appear to float above the surface of the picture plane, or to levitate above it, the face of Muhammad in this portrait seems to protrude in a similar fashion from the surface of the image. Whereas Christ’s face, despite its vivid expression and seeming separation from the veil, remains a two-dimensional representation, the illusionism of Muhammad’s picture imbues him with a virtual corporeality, akin to a portrait bust.⁷¹ This difference is clearly indicated by the Prophet’s shadow cast on the back wall. The constructed antithesis of Christ’s spiritual versus Muhammad’s corporal presence in this image coincides with conventional Christian criticisms of Islam. The author Baudier, for example, claims that Muhammad confronted his people with a material, as opposed to a spiritual image of God, and also that the Muslim conception of the afterlife preoccupies itself with corporeal lust as opposed to spiritual elevation.⁷² Therefore, in contrast to the Christian concept of the true image—the Vera Icon—created by divine intervention, the “icon” of the Prophet is artificially made and, thus, a “false” picture, that, when adored, ensnares the viewer in idolatry.⁷³ Last but not least, the relatively small initial of the letter “D” at the beginning of chapter II, positioned just

71 On the “immaterial” nature of the image of Christ’s face imprinted on the sudarium, see Gerhard Wolf, “From Mandylion to Veronica: Picturing the ‘Disembodied’ Face and Disseminating the True Image of Christ in the Latin West,” in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, ed. Herbert L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1998), esp. 165. 72 Concerning Muhammad’s vision of God during his ascension to heaven, Baudier writes “A la verité il [Mahomet] parle tres-mal du principal object d’icelle: car discourant de la personne de Dieu, il luy donne le mouvement local, comme à un corps pesant & perissable: En l’Azoare trente six, & ailleurs ordonne quatorze chandelles tousiours esclairantes devant sa face divine, dont la monstreuse longueur est de cinq cens annees de chemin.” See Michel Baudier, Histoire générale de la religion des Turcs, Avec la naissance, la vie, et la mort, de leur prophete Mahomet […] (Paris: Claude Cramoisy, 1625), 30. The critique that the Muslims speak of God using “unacceptably anthropomorphic terms” can be found also in Hugo Grotius, Truth of the Christian Religion (1632), as is cited by David A. Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions. Comparative Religion in Seventh- and Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 99. Furthermore, it was commonly believed by Christians that Muhammad’s teachings and the paradise he described were consumed with sensuality and carnal pleasures, and had no spiritual qualities. 73 One of the main characteristics of holy images in the Christian cult was the claim that they were not made by human hands (acheiropoieton). Any intervention made by an artist to these images was undesired, because it would obviate the claim of the image to authenticity and divine origin. See Hans Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990), 66. The argument that an illusionistic image can betray the viewer and therefore lead to false image worship can also be found in the theological treaties of the fifteenth century. See Norbert Schnitzler, “Illusion, Täuschung und schöner Schein: Probleme der Bilderverehrung im späten Mittelalter; Schaufrömmigkeit – ein Missverständnis,” in Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter: politisch-soziale Kontexte, visuelle Praxis, körperliche Ausdrucksformen, ed. Klaus Schreiner and Marc Müntz (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2002), 232.

116 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 18: Untitled, 1698. Engraving on paper, ca. 140 × 90 mm. Humphrey Prideaux, La Vie de Mahomet, où l’on découvre amplement la Vérité de l’imposture: Enrichie de figures en Taille-douces (Amsterdam: George Gallet, 1698), title page.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 117

below the engraving, akin to a footnote, also reinforces the notion of his alleged falsehood. The initial contains a grotesque mask bearing an offensive expression, which harshly contrasts with Muhammad’s sympathetic look, and thus casts a doubt on the trustworthiness of his portrait. The ambiguity of a lifelike but simultaneously somewhat artificial representation of Muhammad is intensified even more in the next example (fig. 18). The title page of Humphrey Prideaux’s La Vie de Mahomet, published in 1698 in Amsterdam, offers the viewer a new approach to the depiction the Prophet, but one which still contains this inherent duality. Instead of portraying Muhammad’s “individuality”, the artist of the engraving deliberately created uncertainty regarding the figure’s true nature. Although the physiognomy of the central figure strongly recalls the face of the Prophet appearing in the engraving of the marriage of Muhammad and Khadija on page eleven in this biography, the viewer is left unable to decide whether it represents the living Prophet, a statue of him, or even a personification of Islam generally.⁷⁴ At first glance, Muhammad, depicted as a young man elevated on a relatively high platform in the foreground of the picture, resembles a statue. This impression results from the arrangement of the figure and from its gestures, such as the victorious presentation of a sword and a small object in the form of a crescent, which isolates him from the men surrounding the podium, who are engaged in vigorous discussion. Yet the scale of the figure, which is similar to the others, and the smooth texture of his skin and clothing, gives no indication of a “material” difference between his figure and the men encircling it. Moreover, the lively, animated expression on the face of Muhammad reinforces the impression that this is not a sculpture of him at all but rather the Prophet himself. However, the attributes included in his depiction negate this notion. Most of the objects, such as the globe, the tablets featuring the Ten Commandments, and the cross on which the figure stands, cannot be related to the historical person of Muhammad and function symbolically; that is, as a metaphoric desecration of the Testaments and as a desire for world domination. Charged with symbolic attributes rather than with historical objects which could plausibly have been in his possession (such as a cloak or sword), the figure of Muhammad is revealed to be an artfully constructed image, or more precisely, a personification. These metaphorical attributes not only call into question the authenticity of this representation of the Prophet, but also emphasize the morally ambiguous nature of the figure. The identification of the figure as masculine is undermined by the inclusion of evidently female breasts. The inherent sexual hybridity resulting from this detail overtly conflicts with the perceived verisimilitude of the depiction, evoking the

74 In the scene “Mahomet marchand, Epousant Cadiga,” the young Muhammad appears with the same face. See Humphrey Prideaux, La Vie de Mahomet (Amsterdam: George Gallet, 1698), 11.

118 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

convention of representing allegories in the form of female personifications. At the same time, on a symbolic level, the breast defames Muhammad as effeminate.⁷⁵ The general ambiguity manifested throughout this image also characterizes the mask that hangs from Muhammad’s belt. As in Baudier’s “portrait”, the mask again undermines the reliability of the representation of the face of the Prophet. However, the specific meaning of this attribute is disputable, because in the seventeenth century it appeared in many personifications and carried a multitude of connotations.⁷⁶ The first and most likely meaning of Muhammad’s mask derives from the traditional association of masks with fraud and falsity. Yet already in 1614, the mask was specifically deployed as an attribute of the personification of heresy in a painting by Pietro Telesphoro de Pomis.⁷⁷ Indeed, Prideaux’s text describes Muhammad as a heretic, raising the possibility that the mask was included to communicate heretical overtones.⁷⁸

75 Hugo Grotius’s comparison of Muhammad to Christ includes the phrase “Mahumet a long time was robber, and always effeminate.” Hugo Grotius, True Religion (London: John Haviland, 1632). Reprinted in The English Experience: its Record in Early Printed Books Published in Facsimile, no. 318 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1971), 329. The frontispiece of George Sandy’s book on the Ottoman Empire also represents the Sultan Ahmet I (r. 1603–1617) with female breasts to indicate his effeminate character. See George Sandys, A Relation of a Iourney begun An: Dom: 1610 […] (London: R. Field, 1615), reprinted in The English Experience: its Record in Early Printed Books Published in Facsimile, no. 554 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1973). 76 According to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia of 1593, which became the most influential description of allegories in seventeenth-century Europe, the mask carries both positive and negative implications. The negative implications, which are in the majority, are personified by Bugia, Fraude, Inganno, Otio, Simulatione, Tradimento. Neutral or positive meanings of the mask include the personification of Comedia, Imitatione, Pittura, and Thalia, which are all linked to the idea of the arts. See Cesare Ripa, Iconologia: overo descrittione di diverse imagini cavate dall’antichità, & di propria invenzione […] [Rome, 1602], introd. Erna Mandowsky (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1984), 46, 174, 228, 374, 455, 489, 70, 223, 404, and 347. Furthermore, the mask, as a symbol of falseness, is destroyed by the allegory of Lealtà. See Ibid., 290. For an extensive study on the iconology of the mask, see Eckhard Leuschner, Persona, Larva, Maske: ikonologische Studien zum 16. bis frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997). 77 The painting shows Archduke Ferdinand’s triumph over heresy. False belief is personified as an old and ugly woman losing her beautiful mask. See Leuschner, Persona, Larva, Maske, 130 and 487. 78 Although Prideaux refutes the legendary stories of Muhammad’s false miracles, he nevertheless describes him as a condemnable impostor. Furthermore, Prideaux claims that “none of those Marks and Properties which are so visible in the Imposture Mahomet, and must be also in all other Impostures in Religion, can possibly be charged upon that holy Religion, which we profess.” Thus, Muhammad is exploited not only to denote the falseness of all heretic movements—Prideaux implicitly refers here to the Deists—but also to prove ex negativo the righteousness of the Christian belief. See Hunphrey Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture fully display’d in the Life of Mahomet with a Discourse annex’d, for the Vindicating of Christianity from this Charge: Offered to the Consideration of the Deists of the present Age [...] (London: printed for William Rogers, 1698), Introduction, IV. This passage was not included into the French version published in the same year in Amsterdam.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 119

Nevertheless, the mask could also connote an “artful” fraud. Since Antiquity a mask symbolized the dramatic arts, functioning as the traditional attribute of Thalia and Melpomene, the Muses of comedy and tragedy. By the seventeenth century the mask had become a basic symbol of the imitation of nature inherent to the performing and visual arts. This specific meaning matches the literary description of the Prophet in so far as he was accused of preaching an invented religion that merely imitated the supposed veracity of Christian doctrine. Thus, the mask suspended from Muhammad’s belt seems to convey a meaning that extends beyond the simple accusation of heresy. In the context of this representation of Muhammad in the form of a theatrically posed figure, which seems to oscillate between actual human being and statue, the mask can be read as a symbol of imitation and of image making itself⁷⁹, akin to Pittura, the personification of painting.⁸⁰ As in Baudier, the engraver of this title page plays on the analogy between the illusionistic capabilities of his art and the supposedly deceitful character of the represented.⁸¹ A third meaning can be deduced from the etymology of the word “persona”, which was used either to denote the social status and role of a man (lat. persona) or to refer to a mask as an object (lat. persona).⁸² Thus, the mask placed at his hip may also be seen as indicative of Muhammad’s social role, as distinguishable from his character as an individual. Within this complex nexus of multiple meanings, the inclusion of the mask as an attribute arouses the viewer’s suspicion: does the mask symbolize the removal of the Prophet’s persona, revealing to the viewer his underlying nature and motivations, or does it have the opposite function, indicating the duplicitous nature of the engraved figure, which, through the detail of the mask and its inherent allusion to theatricality

79 Regarding the myth of Pygmalion and the issue of artificially-produced vivacity see George L. Hersey, Falling in Love with Statues. Artificial Humans from Pygmalion to the Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Victor I. Stoichita: The Pygmalion Effect. From Ovid to Hitchcock (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), and Aleida Assmann, “Belebte Bilder. Der PygmalionMythos zwischen Religion und Kunst,” in Pygmalion. Die Geschichte des Mythos in der abendländischen Kultur, ed. Mathias Mayer and Gerhard Neumann (Freiburg i.Br.: Rombach, 1997), 63–87. Concerning the representations of Muhammad as an idol, see Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 129–164. 80 Also, Pittura could be represented with a mask. See Leuschner, Persona, Larva, Maske, 145–146. 81 By the end of the seventeenth century it was common in art theory as well as in critiques of art to emphasize the inherent capability of the image to delude vision. The topos of the painter as an “honest cheat” arose, and from the second half of the century onwards the illusionistic qualities of pictures were subject to increasing theoretical and technical appreciation, especially in the Netherlands. See Gregor J.M. Weber: Der Lobtopos des ,lebenden‘ Bildes. Jan Vos und sein ,Zeege der Schilderkunst‘ von 1654 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1991), 98 and 103. 82 Hannah Baader, “Anonym: Sua cuique Persona. Maske, Rolle, Porträt,” in Porträt, ed. Rudolf Preimesberger, Hannah Baader and Nicola Suthor (Berlin: Reimer, 1999), 239–246.

120 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

and artifice, presents itself as a masterful simulation, and even an artfully produced “false” image? An answer to this question is perhaps suggested by the inclusion of a group of figures gathered around the central platform. Two of the men, the Christian monk on the left and the man in oriental costume to the right of the base, are shown writing. Both are depicted in the act of transforming their visual experience into the written word, creating textual images of the Prophet. Therefore, the composition of the engraving itself suggests that these literary descriptions are based on contradictory experiences, because the writers positioned among the divergent groups to the left and to the right of the image perceive the figure of the Prophet from different points of view. The two Christian monks, recognizable by their cloth and tonsured hair who stand on the left side of Muhammad are mainly confronted with negative and domineering attributes—the sword in Muhammad’s hand, the mask, and the desecrated religious symbols under his foot. In contrast, the Muslim writing on a parchment scroll perceives the figure of Muhammad from the opposite side, and from closer proximity to positive objects, according to his worldview, such as the globe, the crescent, and the scroll hanging down from Muhammad’s arm.⁸³ Furthermore, the inclusion of these scribes in the title page of Muhammad’s biography conveys another important layer of meaning. Through their insertion, the act of writing in which they are engaged adopts a self-referential quality, which, aside from the most sensational and impressive figurative representations of the Prophet, points to a more abstract method of perceiving and presenting him, and thus to the book itself. The wall behind the scribe to the left not only bears the foreshortened inscription of the book’s title, but also opens the pictorial space through its diagonal alignment to the upper right, prompting the eyes of the viewer to consider the background of the image, where an armed cavalry troop is shown assembling at the outskirts of a town. Although the rules of relative scale dictate that the scene occurs a fair distance from the foreground, the riding commander of the troops is noticeably prominent. He not only is the biggest figure depicted in the background, but also is framed by the crescent held by the central figure of Muhammad in the foreground. Besides the foreshortened title of the book, this visual and symbolic connection is the only linking element between the content of the foreground and background, suggesting that the captain of the cavalry can also be understood as Muhammad, depicted a second time as an elder man within a historical scene inspired by an episode of his life. In fact, a similar figure appears within the biography as a depiction of the elder Muhammed.⁸⁴ Therefore, the title page of the biography of the Prophet seems to simultaneously offer

83 In a second version of this frontispiece published in 1699, the scroll of the Muslim writer is much easier to recognize. Furthermore, the region of the globe on which Muhammad puts his foot features an inscription clearly naming it as Europe. 84 In the scene “Mahomet créé Roy, abat par tout les Idoles”. See Prideaux, La vie de Mahomet, 113.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 121

two different representations of Muhammad. The artist deliberately distinguished between the historical person of Muhammad, shown in the “historically distant” background of the image, and a personification of Islam bearing Muhammad’s face, which engages the viewer directly and immediately in the foreground. Prideaux’s title page maintains standard prejudices against Islam, but, instead of relying upon standard iconographical formulas, such as depicting Muhammad in the guise of Antichrist or of an Ottoman Sultan, the engraver has represented the Prophet as a topical and artistically constructed figure of his own. Thus, its ambiguous nature and monumental effect imparts again the medieval suspicion that Muhammad is represented as a false image or an idol. Nevertheless, by representing Muhammad a second time in the separated space in the background of the image, the engraver drew a clear distinction between the historical person and the artificial imaginations of Muhammad passed on by both Christian and Muslim writers and artists. For the first time an image of the Prophet Muhammad reflects not only his historical distance, but also that his representation and interpretation is relative to the different authors’ standpoints. A positive view of the Prophet permeated slowly throughout Europe. Before the first sympathetic biography of Muhammad was published in Western Europe by the Count Henri de Boulainvilliers in 1730,⁸⁵ and well before Goethe praised the sublime character of the Qur’an in his West-Östlicher Diwan in 1819,⁸⁶ already in 1703 a German edition of the Qur’an, published by the Protestant Superintendent David Nerreter, was an important step towards a more historically accurate image of the Prophet.⁸⁷ His pursuit of an objective and verifiable assessment of Muhammad is evident throughout the entire work.⁸⁸ To name but one example, Nerreter considered the legend of the dove to be unreliable, because he could find no trace of it in biographies of the

85 See Henri de Boulainvilliers, La vie de Mahomed (London: P. Humbert, 1730). However, Boulainvilliers’s text can hardly be described as an objective scholarly work. Rather, his positive evaluation of the Prophet was composed in order to attack the Christian Church. See Peter M. Holt, “The Treatment of Arab History by Prideaux, Ockley and Sale,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. Bernhard Lewis and Peter M. Holt (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 300 and Arthur Jeffery, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” The Muslim World 16 (1926), 327–348. 86 Already in 1773, long before Goethe published his West-Östlicher Diwan, he lauded the figure of Muhammad in his poem Mahomets Gesang. See Katharina Mommsen, Goethe und der Islam (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 2001), 42. 87 Minou Reeves evaluates the book differently. In her opinion, Nerreter merely repeats anti-Islamic stereotypes. At first glance her estimation is right, but she fails to notice Nerreter’s scholarly scepticism towards the traditionally negative image of the Prophet. See Reeves, Mohammad in Europe, 171. 88 Nerreter was not able to read Arabic and, thus, he had to rely on secondary sources. However, he was careful in his selection of texts. His German translation of the Qur’an, for example, was based on the newest Latin version, translated by Ludovico Marracci, that was widely considered at the time to be the best translation available.

122 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Prophet propagated by Muslim authors.⁸⁹ His critical attitude also manifests itself in the image of Muhammad. Departing from common practice, Nerreter did not employ an artist to invent a new face for the Prophet (fig. 19). Instead, he commissioned a copy of the image of Muhammad which appeared in the history by Baudier (fig. 16). His efforts to provide a reliable image went even further: the copper engraving is not used as a frontispiece but is included next to a description of the appearance of Muhammad, offering the reader a direct comparison of text and image.⁹⁰ Although it seems that the image provided by Nerreter remained unchanged from the one found in Baudier’s text—the portrait resembles its model in pose, costume and physiognomy—one component was considerably altered, impacting the essential message imparted by the picture. Instead of including the simple rectangular frame which encapsulated the image in Baudier’s history, Muhammad is now represented in an oval picture frame that evokes sculptural decoration. Moreover, the extension of the rectangular outer frame of the copper engraving into the oval frame of the portrait indicates that the image in Nerreter’s book is not a portrait but the picture of a portrait. Through the new framing the picture not only abstains from the exaggerated illusionistic qualities featured in Baudier, but also dissociates itself from any claim to provide a direct and original representation of the Prophet. Instead it reveals itself to be the reproduction of a portrait, a fact that Nerreter emphasizes in the text by referring directly to its prototype contained in the work of the renowned historian Baudier. Yet it seems that Nerreter’s desire for historical accuracy was not satisfied. The two strata in which the image operates, the represented historical portrait and its actual reproduction, are also captured in the inscriptions which accompany the portrait, where the engraver has incorporated two forms of lettering. Similar to the image in Baudier, the man depicted is defamed exclusively by the text, where the formula of der falsche Prophet (the false Prophet) appears again. The name of the Prophet written in Roman capitals is inscribed in the picture’s stone frame, whereas the phrase der falsche Prophet, which appears directly below the inscription, is written with the same

89 This was also the opinion of the Oxford Professor of Arabic, Edward Pocock (1604–1691), which he quotes in the text: “Was insgeheim fürgegeben wird, als hette er eine Taube gewöhnet, ihm aus dem Ohr zu essen, dass man meinen sollte, der Hl. Geist habe ihm den Alkoran also eingegeben, kann aus den Arabischen Scribenten nicht erwiesen werden. Daher auch Grotius, als er vom Pocokio gefragt worden, wo er die Meinung her habe, die er L. 6. der Verit. Relig. von der gewöhnten Tauben angeführt, geantwortet und frey bekannt, dass er’s bey keinem Arabischen Scribenten gelesen, sondern in des Scaligeri Notis ad Manilium. Und eben dergleichen Gattung ist auch das Gedicht vom Ochsen, auf dessen Hörnern der Alkoran dem Mahomet soll zugetragen worden seyn, da er eben von seinem Gesetze das Volk gelehrt.” See David Nerrter, Neu-eröffnete Mahometanische Moschea […] (Nürnberg: Endter, 1703), 49. 90 Concerning the tradition of the literal descriptions of the Prophet see Rudolf Sellheim, “Das Lächeln des Propheten,” in Festschrift für Adolf Ellegard Jensen, ed. Eike Haberland, Meinhard Schuster and Helmut Straube (München: Renner, 1964), 621–630.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 123

Fig. 19: Christoph Weigel (attr.), MAHVMED der Falsche Prophet, 1703. Engraving on paper, 130 × 74 mm. In David Nerreter, Neu-eröffnete Mahometanische Moschea: [...], Fürs andre, Der völlige Alkoran, Nach der besten Edition Ludovici Marraccii, verteutscht, und kürzlich widerlegt wird (Nürnberg: Wolfgang M. Endters, 1703), 44.

124 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

gothic typeface which is used throughout the book. The two different letter forms suggest that they were made at different times and by different authors. The Roman capital letters belong to an inscription that intentionally appears archaic, whereas the slanderous phrase ‘the false Prophet’ gives the impression of being a later addition made by the artist or the author himself. The overwriting of the letters, specifically the gothic “S” which clearly overlaps the letter “H” of “MAHVMED”, makes these two different instances in time evident: The inscription in capital letters suggests an ancient sculptural memorial apparently made by Muslim worshippers which preserves an “authentic” record of the Prophet, whereas the overwriting in gothic letters that defines the surface of Nerreter’s reproduction bears the conventional label of “impostor”. Operating on these two different levels the engraving qualifies the reader’s judgment of the Prophet, emphasizing that a negative evaluation of Muhammad is not a given truth but an act of interpretation that is time specific and which therefore must be critically assessed. Through the evident stylistic differences between the two captions, and the superscription of the phrase der falsche Prophet, the hand of the author declares its own subjective, interpretive status. Like Prideaux’s title page, Nerreter’s portrait distinguishes between the “historical” Prophet and his actual representation and description. These two images, both created at the turn of the eighteenth century, offer evidence of the relativity then affecting the perception of the Prophet. This phenomenon was not only limited to considerations regarding the historicity of the image of Muhammad, but also encompassed the differences between the Muslim and Christian religious and literary traditions. Nevertheless, this new scholarly approach, which reflects the intellectual inquiry of the Enlightenment, did not necessarily result in an impartial assessment of Muhammad as a religious or historical figure.⁹¹ The engravings in Nerreter and Prideaux demonstrate two opposing approaches to the pictorialization of the Prophet in Europe. In Nerreter’s portrait the “real” Prophet remains an indeterminate entity, caught between the two strata of the Islamic and Christian imagination. The picture therefore provided the starting point for a new appraisal of Muhammad which could surpass traditional modes of representation. The artist of Prideaux’s title page, however, largely followed the author’s traditional, negative characterization of Muhammad.

91 Instead, most texts written by scholars and travellers in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concerning Islam display a paradoxical mixture of a desire for objectivity and also for the maintenance of traditional prejudices; and of fascination with the exotic and also distaste for the alien. Ian R. Netton describes the situation thus: “The lands of the Middle East might indeed be approached overtly, and probably sincerely, out of a desire to slake an Enlightenment thirst for knowledge or to complete an education, but such pure aims did not necessarily imply an absence of prejudice on the part of the traveller or the writer. Paradoxically, however, prejudice against some facets of Islam and the Middle East could sometimes exist side by side with sympathy for others.” See Ian R. Netton, “The Mysteries of Islam,” in Exoticism in the Enlightenment, ed. Georg S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 25.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 125

Pointing to the passage of time and the contrasting Muslim and Christian literary traditions, he replaced the historical person with a timeless, supra-individuated figure type, wherein a multitude of Western biases against Islam are compressed. In the decades following the Amsterdam print of Prideaux’s book, the difference between literary images of Muhammad produced by historians and Arabists on the one hand, and visual images produced by playwrights and artists on the other, became more and more evident. Popular taste clearly preferred the sensational imaginations produced by the arts. This change in the popular reception of Muhammad was probably due to a new taste for Ottoman and Islamic culture generally, which accompanied the gradual ebbing of the Ottoman threat after the second siege of Vienna in 1683 and the Empire’s subsequent retreat from Middle and Eastern Europe.⁹² Emblematic of the change perception of Islam is the title engraving at the beginning of the Amsterdam edition of André du Ryer’s translation of the Qur’an into French, published in 1734 (fig. 20).⁹³ Its artist, Adolf van der Laan, lavishes attention on the different costumes of the figures included in the scene, and in the idyllic landscape and eclectic architecture that surrounds them, while he directs much less effort towards the characterization of the Prophet. At first glance the image offers no immediate indication of a negative depiction of Muhammad. He is shown on a hill in the center of the picture, preaching to a group of men gathered around him. Muhammad’s audience is composed of different ethnicities representative of the geographical areas where Islam was then practiced, which are harmoniously united. In the foreground a black African reclines on the soil in the pose of an ancient river god, while the listeners assembled on the slopes of the hill display stereotypically Chinese, Arab and European features. The variety and richness of their representation recalls Christian iconography of missionary preachers in foreign lands, and the people and animals in the background recall a travelling caravan hurrying to join the listeners gathered around the Prophet. Christian iconography is evoked again through the representation of Muhammad, who sits humbly on a rock and preaches to a large crowd, thus, recalling representations of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). In contrast to this evocation of Christ, expressed by iconographic similitude, the narrative episodes represented in the background of the frontispiece regenerate nega-

92 The most important book to bolster this new mystic and exotic view of the Muslim Orient was Antoine Galland’s translation of Les Mille et Une Nuit (The Thousand and One Nights), which he finished in 1717, and which quickly became one of the most widely read books of its time. See Yuriko Yamanaka and Tetsuo Nishio, ed., The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West (London, I.B. Tauris, 2006). 93 André de Ryer, L’ Alcoran de Mahomet (Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1734). This book was one of the numerous re-editions of Ryer’s translation, which was first made in 1649. See Alastair Hamilton and Francis Richard, André du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford: Arcadian Library in association with Oxford University Press, 2004).

126 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 20: Adolf van der Laan, No Title, 1733. Engraving on paper, 180 × 112 mm. André du Ryer, L’Alcoran de Mahomet, traduit de l’Arabe par A. Du Ryer [...] Nouvelle édition, revue et corrigée, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1734), title page (detail).

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 127

tive stereotypes of Muhammad as a traitor and idolater. In the center of the picture, where the landscape opens to reveal a path leading to a city, a group of people surround a cow and a man lying on the ground. The scene refers to a passage of Surat al-Baqara (“The Cow,” Q 2: 67–73), where Moses orders his people to sacrifice a cow in order to resurrect a man who had been killed by an unknown murderer. In his comment to this passage Ryer explains how the Muslims believe that the touch of the tongue of this sacrificed cow had the power to bring a person back from the dead.⁹⁴ The positioning of the scene in the engraving right beside Muhammad’s mouth, while he simultaneously composes the Qur’an on his lap and indicates the event in the background, seems to link the representation of the story of the cow to the Prophet’s actual speech. The artist must have misunderstood the text and its commentary, because according to the narrative contained in the book, the deceased person was brought back to life by the touch of a piece of the dead cow and not by the tongue of the living animal. The scene situated to the right of this narrative episode, however, cannot be explained with a simple misunderstanding of the book’s contents, but must be recognized as a deliberately erroneous representation of the text. It features two worshippers adoring a sculpture in front of a fanciful architectural structure, reminiscent of both a round Roman temple and a Chinese pagoda. The silhouette of the sculpture placed in the small temple resembles the figure of Muhammad sitting on the rock in the center of the page perfectly. Furthermore the crescent, which appears on the turban of the preaching Prophet and reappears over the entrance to the shrine, leaves no doubt that it is a statue of Muhammad being adored. Although it contradicted knowledge of Islam among erudite circles throughout Europe, and even the characterization of Islam within the book itself—which definitively refutes the notion of Islamic idolatry—the artist did not restrain from creating this image.⁹⁵ The characterization of Islam as a continuation of ancient or “oriental” idolatrous practices, was a more colorful and fascinating image than the factual descriptions of the religion contained in contemporary scholarship. Still, it should be emphasized that the accusation concerning the supposed heretical nature of Islam is relatively tame here. The image of idolatry is confined to the background, while in the foreground the followers of Muhammad form a peaceful society. With its idyllic and lavish setting, Adolf van der Laan’s frontispiece presents an exoticized picture of Islam that corresponds to the eighteenth-century delight in mas-

94 Ryer’s commentary reads “Les Turcs croyent qu’un home ressuscita lors qu’il fut frappé de la langue de cette vache.” See Ryer, L’Alcoran de Mahomet, 10. 95 Ibid. unpaginated (in Ryer’s preface to the reader) : “Il declame contre ceux qui adorent les idoles, particulierement contre les Habitants de la Ville de la Meque, & contre Coreïs qui estoient ses ennemis à son évenement […].” The quill in Muhammad’s hand also conflates the act of preaching the Qur’an with its authorship, reflecting the popular legend throughout Europe that the Qur’an was, in fact, written by Muhammad.

128 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

querades, which in turn inspired the category of painting known as fêtes galantes, typically depicting festive gatherings of costumed and masked nobility occurring in idealized landscapes, often featuring pavilions or temples.⁹⁶ This new playful vision of Islam was not confined to the visual arts; Muhammad became a famous theatrical character throughout Europe due to Voltaire’s play Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophète (The Fanatiscim, or the Prophet Muhammad), performed first in 1741.⁹⁷ Indeed, Muhammad’s debut on stage seems to have occurred during a ballet that was performed at the French court of Louis XIII in 1626.⁹⁸ The play was exceptional in its inclusion of comical scenes relating to Islam and the Prophet. In the first of five acts Muhammad enters the stage accompanied by a group of Muslim scholars “marching in mock solemnity and gesticulating with a quill pen over the tremendous Koran borne on the backs of two bowed figures preceding him”.⁹⁹ The bizarre costumes

96 Maxime Rodinson, in his article “The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam,” in The Legacy of Islam, ed. Joseph Schacht and Clifford E. Bosworth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 36–37, explains that “Islam was no longer seen as the land of Antichrist but essentially that of an exotic, picturesque civilization, existing in a fabulous atmosphere peopled by good or evil, wayward genies – all this for the delight of an audience that had already shown so much taste for European fairy tales.” 97 The shift to a more exotic conception of Islam is already detectable a hundred years earlier in Madeleine de Scudéry’s novel Ibrahim ou l’illustre Bassa, published in 1641. See Frederick Quinn, The Sum of All Heresies. The Image of Islam in Western Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 61. Mademoiselle de Scudéry created the idea “of a Turkish world of color and cruelty, pageantry and intrigue.” Subsequent publications, which created a more playful and attractive image of the Orient, include the already mentioned translation of the Mille et Une Nuit by Antoine Galland in 1704–1717, and Baron de Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (Persian Letters) completed in 1721. On Voltaire’s play see Christopher Todd and Ahmad Gunny, ed., Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophete; De l’Alcoran et de Mahomet, vol 20B of The Complete Works of Voltaire / Œuvres completes de Voltaire Le, ed. Nicholas Cronk et. al. (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002). Regarding Voltaire’s relationship to Islam, see Magdy G. Badir, Voltaire et l’Islam (Banbury, GB: Voltaire Foundation 1974) and Djavâd Hadidi: Voltaire et l’Islam (Paris: Association Langues et civilisations, 1974). 98 The first play in which Muhammad was conceived as a figure on stage was William Percy’s Mahomet and his Heaven. It was written in the beginning of the seventeenth century, but there is no evidence that it was ever performed. See William Percy’s Mahomet and His Heaven. A Critical Edition, ed. Matthew Dimmock, (Aldershot: 2006), 2. The first verifiable representation of Muhammad onstage occurred in the Ballets du Grand Turc et Peuples d’Asie. (Ballets of the Grand Turk and the people of Asia) The comic play was written on behalf of Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643) and was conceived as a reply to a diplomatic affront committed by the Ottoman ambassador. Muhammad appears in the first scene of this ballet among a group of Muslim scholars dressed in ridiculously exaggerated costumes. See Haitham Abdulaziz Saab, “The Representation of the Orient in Molière: Europe and the Turks in the Bourgeois Gentleman (1670),” J. King Saud University 17 (2009), 42 and Clarence D. Rouillard, “The Background of the Turkish Ceremony in Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” University of Toronto Quarterly 39, no. 1 (1969), 35. A colored drawing of the scene “Entrée de Mahomet et ses docteurs” was made by Daniel Rabel and is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Reserve QB-3 (1629)-FOL. 99 Rouillard, “The background of the Turkish ceremony,” 35.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 129

and masks worn by the actors, and the plot—which ends in a chaotic brawl between Muslim scholars from the Ottoman and Savafid Empires—was written to ridicule Islam and its Prophet. The strategy of presenting Islam and Muhammad as fantastic and comic elements in theater culminated in Alain-René Lesage’s farce, Arlequin Mahomet (Harlequin Muhammad), which was first performed in 1714 in Foire de Saint Laurent.¹⁰⁰ In this play, set in “the Orient,” the mask of the “false prophet,” previously used as a symbolic attribute of Muhammad in the title page to Prideaux’s book (fig. 18), functions as the actual disguise of the protagonist Harlequin. As a character of the commedia dell’arte, the mask is part of Harlequin’s typical stage costume, so that in this play he is doubly masked and wears the mask of Muhammad on top of his own. Harlequin dresses up as Muhammad in order to betray the Muslim characters featured in the play and to help a Princess to marry her beloved Prince by appropriating the authority of the Prophet. The engraving before the title page of the script, printed in 1721, depicts the climax of the play (fig. 21): Harlequin—masquerading as Muhammad with a long, white beard and a mask—casts thunderbolts from his flying vehicle at the King of Basra and the Tartar Kam, who tried to forbid the marriage of the Princess of Basra and the Prince of Persia. In this staging of Harlequin-Muhammad as deus ex machina, the false Prophet uses gadgets of theatrical illusion: a mechanically flying object, a mask and fireworks; all tricks that help him to effectively mislead the Muslim characters in the play, but that are, at the same time, revealed as technical and theatrical gimmicks to the European spectators. For instance, Harlequin’s flying vehicle, which appears in the frontispiece camouflaged as a cloud, is revealed in the previous dialogue of the play to be nothing more than a mechanical construction.¹⁰¹ Thus, Lesage’s play draws on medieval anti-Islamic traditions. For example, Harlequin’s acts of theatrical trickery correspond to the widespread legend of Muhammad’s deceit with the tamed dove which was trained to pick grain out of Muhammad’s ear in order to create the impression that Muhammad was inspired by the Holy Ghost, as depicted in the title page of De Bry’s Acta Mechmeti I. (fig. 15). Furthermore, the representation of Muhammad as a god in the engraving of the printed version of the play Arlequin Mahomet evokes the French medieval tradition of the legendary Muhammad in chansons de geste, in which Muslims are described as worshippers of the idol “Mahum”.¹⁰² Furthermore, the King of Basra and the Tartar Kam call the Prophet a rogue, after having learned that Muhammad ordered the marriage of the

100 Alain-René Lesage, Arlequin Mahomet. Piéce d’un acte. Par M. le S[age]. Representée à la Foire de Saint Laurent 1714 (Paris: E. Ganeau, 1721). 101 Asked by Harlequin whether the flying box is magic, the inventor Boubkeir answers: “Non, non, de Mécanique c’est un ouvrage pur.” See Lesage, Arlequin Mahomet, 116. Furthermore, the bolts thrown by Harlequin at his adversaries are described as fireworks in the surviving stage directions. See ibid., 136. 102 On this tradition see Camille, The Gothic idol, 141–152.

130 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 21: Bonnart fils (del.) and François de Poilly (the Younger) (sculps.), No Titel, 1721(?). Copper engraving and etching on paper, 148 × 81 mm. In: Alain-René Lesage: “Arlequin Mahomet.” In Le théatre de la foire, ou L’opera comique: Contenant les meilleures pieces qui ont été representées aux foires de S. Germain & de S. Laurent. Enrichies d’estampes en taille douce, avec une table de tous les vaudevilles & autres airs gravez-notez à la fin de chaque volume. Recueillies, revûës, & corrigées, 6 vols. (Paris: Etienne Ganeau, 1723–1731), vol. 1, 110.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 131

Princess and the Prince against their will.¹⁰³ This evokes the treatment of the medieval Saracens within the chansons de geste, who are depicted in some cases as quickly abandoning their faith and destroying their idols after losing a battle.¹⁰⁴ In both cases, in the play and in the chansons, it seems as if the Muslims would abide by their faith only as long as it was beneficial and compatible with their plans and intentions. The disguised Harlequin is thus only able to regain his authority through force, such as when he beats the Tartar Kam and the King with a club. The play’s main innovation is its presentation of the deceit traditionally associated with Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in a humorous and satiric fashion. Muhammad, played by Harlequin, thus becomes a “doubly false” prophet, and through this farcical composition it is clear that the play did not intend to inform the audience about the historical Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, but that he was merely a theatrical invention, where both the realm of Islam and of the Orient merge, revealing themselves to be fictional stage-sets. The further stage career of the figure of Muhammad was determined by Voltaire’s play Le fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète (Mahomet). Shortly after its debut in Lille in 1741, it was performed in Paris and then in numerous productions staged in theaters across Europe.¹⁰⁵ Although Voltaire’s theatrical representation of the Orient was conventional and even his Muhammad corresponded to the most common Western prejudices,¹⁰⁶ the play nevertheless became a scandal. Voltaire depicted Muhammad as a Machiavellian ruler, who invented his own religion and subsequently took advantage of the fanaticism of his followers. Many of Voltaire’s contemporaries interpreted the play as an indirect critique of institutional religions and of Christianity in particular.¹⁰⁷ Thus, it can be suggested that Voltaire’s Mahomet followed in the tradition of Montesquieu’s previous Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721), which exposed the depravities of French society through the eyes of two fictional Persian visitors to Paris, who report their experiences in letters sent home. The copper print, depicting an English performance of Voltaire’s play, illustrates the popular appreciation of such

103 “Le Roy: / Tout cela ne sent rien de bon: / Ce Mahomet est un fripon. (…) Le Kam: / Oui, vous avez raison, Beau-père, / Mahomet est un scelerat.” See Lesage, Arlequin Mahomet, 135. 104 For a description of this behavior of Saracens in disrespect to their idols mentioned, for example, in the Jeu de Saint Nicolas (The play of Saint Nicolas, around 1200), see Camille, The Gothic Idol, 129, 134. 105 For an extensive bibliography of all editions and translations, see Todd, Le Fanatisme, 60–135. 106 The form of Voltaire’s Mahomet le Prophète largely conforms to the French tradition of Oriental religious-tragedies like Corneille’s Polyeucte (1643) und Racine’s Bajazet (1672). See Angela C. Pao: The Orient of the Boulevards. Exoticism, Empire, and Nineteenth-Century French Theatre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 56. 107 Voltaire’s critics described the play as “une satire sanglante contre la religion chrétienne”. In some instances, his opponents even interpreted the figure of Muhammad as a critique of Christ. See Hadidi, Voltaire et l’Islam, 54–57.

132 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 22: Edwards (del.) and Collier (sculps.), Mr. Bensley in the Character of Mahomet, Act 2. Sc. 2., Etching with engraving on paper, 175 × 109 mm. Voltaire, Mahomet, the impostor: a tragedy marked with the variations of the manager’s book at the Theatres-Royal in Drury-Lane, trans. James Miller, London. C. Bathurst et al., 1777), title page.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 133

Oriental subjects (fig. 22). For instance, Muhammad’s rich garments, the feather and the crescent attached to his turban,¹⁰⁸ coupled with the inclusion of a palm tree in the background, clearly creates an exotic setting. However, in the eighteenth century, the theatrical presentation of the Orient rarely referred to any actual geographic region but rather functioned as a distinct mode of artistic expression autonomous of lived experience. The figure of Muhammad was a similarly fictional construction: Voltaire freely admitted that his dramatization of the Prophet did not correspond to historic facts, and asserted that his changes were acceptable due to artistic license.¹⁰⁹ The inscription of the frontispiece of the printed play also declares that it represents the English actor Robert Bensley in the role of Muhammad, who gives a pathetic monologue lauding the usefulness of his Qur’an, confirming that it records a theatrical scene and not a historic moment. As already seen in the engraving of Prideaux’s La Vie de Mahomet, a book to which Voltaire frequently referred,¹¹⁰ the perception of Muhammad had been divided into the historical person of scholarly interest and an imaginary, dramatized and highly visible figure, which was implemented by the arts and which did not hid its artificiality. The next major change in the visual representation of Muhammad occurred in the nineteenth century. One of the first examples of this altered vision can be found in the edition of George Sale’s translation of the Qur’an in 1801 (fig. 23). This image, which follows the table of contents in the second of two volumes of the translation, is particularly important because it can be regarded not only as an example of the romantic transfiguration of Muhammad but also of the application of iconographic formulas drawn from images produced in the Islamic world to a representation of the Prophet produced in the West. But before we consider this image, it is necessary to briefly address the text of Sale’s translation of the Qur’an, and its new attitude towards Islam, which seems to have influenced illustrations contained in subsequent editions of his publication. George Sale’s Koran: commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, published in 1734, was the first direct translation of the Qur’an from Arabic into English. The book, which was reissued in a total of one hundred and twenty-three editions prior to 1965, when it was printed for the last time, remains one of the most widely available translations of the Qur’anic text.¹¹¹ Despite this posthumous success, it was not well-received by Sale’s contemporaries, largely because Sale presented a vision of the Prophet that

108 The same elements were also used in the frontispiece of Ryer’s translation of the Qur’an published in 1734. See (fig. 20). 109 See Badir, Voltaire et l’Islam, 78, and Netton, “The Mysteries of Islam,” 37. 110 See Philip C. Almond, Heretic and Hero. Muhammad and the Victorians (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1989), 34. 111 See Franz V. Greifenhagen, “Traduttore Traditore: An Analysis of the History of English Translations of the Qur’an,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 3, no. 2 (1995), 279.

134 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 23: Untitled, 1801(?). Wood engraving (?) on paper, ca. 80 × 88 mm. George Sale, The Koran: Commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, Translated from the Orginal Arabic, with explanatory notes […] To wich is prefixed a preliminary discourse […], 2 vols. (London: Thomas Maiden, 1801), vol. 1, fol. IV.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 135

constituted a radical departure from traditional depictions of Muhammad.¹¹² Giving more weight to Arabic textual sources than to the Christian literary tradition, Sale lauded Muhammad as a sincere and authentic individual who displayed many noble qualities and virtues.¹¹³ Sale did not completely overturn the normative perception of the Prophet: despite his largely positive summation of Muhammad’s character, Sale could not restrain himself from condemning Muhammad’s religious teachings. In his Preliminary Discourse to the Koran Sale terms Muhammad an “imposter” and repeats the conventional prejudice that the rapid expansion of Islam was highly dependent on the use of violence.¹¹⁴ Although Sale condemned the supposed militaristic nature of Islam, he was still subject to harsh attacks due to his presentation of the Prophet as a sympathetic figure.¹¹⁵ Sale’s critics seemingly regarded his conventional condemnation of the Prophet as insincere, included in his text merely to satisfy the expectations of a pious Christian public. This suspicion should not be completely rejected. The opening phrase of its introduction emphasizes how tedious Sale found it to slander Islam:

112 Sale never travelled abroad to study Arabic. On the events of his life see Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, vol. 50, s.v. “Sale, George”. See also Holt, “The Treatment of Arab History,” 298–299. 113 Sale’s work played an important role in disseminating a positive image of Muhammad. See D’Ancona, La leggenda di Maometto, 20. Commenting on Sale’s unique contribution, Holt writes that “[h]is freedom from religious prejudice, (…) his obvious conviction that Arabic writers were the best source of Arab history, and Muslim commentators the fittest to expound the Qur’ān, marks an enormous advance on the hodgepodge of “authorities” advanced by Prideaux. His work complements that of Simon Ockley (1678–1720) and for over a century the two played a leading part in creating the notion of the Prophet and the Arabs held by educated Englishmen.” See Holt, “The Treatment of Arab History,” 302. Concerning Sales’ characterization of Muhammad, see also David A. Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions. Comparative religion in Seventh- and Eighteenth-century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 91. 114 Sale sees the violent tribal warfare and rapid militaristic advance characteristic of the earliest centuries of Islam as “one of the most convincing proofs that Mohammedism was no other than human invention,” George Sale, The Koran: commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed: translated into English [...] with explanatory notes, taken from the most approved commentators. To which is prefixed a preliminary discourse […] (London: C. Ackers, 1734), 50. Nevertheless, Sale qualifies this statement in the preface, where he declares that “they are greatly deceived who imagine [Islam] to have been propagated by the sword alone, or by what means it came to be embraced by nations which never felt the force of the Mohammedan arms,” ibid, III. 115 He was accused of equating Christianity and Islam, or even of being “half Muslim”. See Greifenhagen, “Traduttore Traditore,” 279. Greifenhagen’s thesis that the “non-Muslims who first began to translate the Qur’an into English acted with the explicit intention of betraying the original text, by showing it to be false or inferior or somehow untrue to its own stated goals” is, in the case of Sale’s book, already contradicted by its negative reception by contemporaries. Furthermore, Greifenhagen does not take into account that Sale’s negative statements about Muhammad are superficial and defensive in nature.

136 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

I imagine it almost needless either to make an apology for publishing the following translation, or to go about to prove it a work of use as well as curiosity. They must have a mean opinion of the Christian religion, or be but ill grounded therein, who can apprehend any danger from so manifest a forgery.¹¹⁶

The author cleverly turns the widespread opinion of the Qur’an as an adulteration of Christian doctrine against potential critics, in order to achieve a more objective examination of the tenets of Islam. In accordance with his historical sensibility, Sale chose to illustrate his book with a geographical map of Arabia, two genealogical charts tracing the lineage of the major Arabic tribes, and an image of the Kaaba in Mecca. Notably, he did not include a portrait of Muhammad. It was long after Sale’s death in 1736 that other illustrations were added to later editions of the text, including depictions of Muhammad. The new illustrations accompanying the edition of Sale’s translation of the Koran in 1801 included an image featuring a possible representation of the Prophet, but the subject was given a less prominent position than in the printed books discussed above. Situated directly under the table of contents and fairly small in scale and lacking a frame, the image commands less attention, functioning less like an independent visual representation and more like a decorative element of the book. This unpretentious representation is echoed in the content of the image (fig. 23). The picture features a man wearing a turban and caftan who kneels in an idyllic landscape. Holding a cup in his left hand, he pours water into his right. This concentrated gesture, combined with his kneeling posture, suggests that he is preparing for ritual prayer. To the right the surrounding flora is shaped in a form of a niche that half encloses the man, creating a natural space that formally reflects his inner harmony and concentration. It can be argued that this image represents the Muslim understanding of the purpose of ceremonial washing before prayer rather than the meaning of it propagated by Christian onlookers. Whereas Christian writers mistakenly claimed that the ablutions performed by Muslims before prayer were believed to actually cleanse them of their sins, this vignette accompanying Sale’s translation of the holy Qur’an appears to characterize the act as one of meditation and spiritual purification.¹¹⁷ Thus, the

116 Sale, The Koran, III. 117 Sale vigorously opposed the claim made by many previous Christian writers that Muslims believed they were washing away their sins when completing the ritual purification of the body before prayer, stating “Whence it plainly appears, with how little foundation the Mohammedans have been charged by some writers, with teaching or imagining these formal washings alone cleanse them from their sins.” See ibid., 105. The renunciation of this Western prejudice was already present in Adrian Reland, Zwey Bücher von der Türckischen oder Mohammedischen Religion (Hanover: Förster, 1717), §9, XXXII; but it was still dispersed through the reprints of Ryer’s translation of the Qur’an and those by other authors.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 137

man can be understood as a model for the reader, indicating the proper preparation for reading the word of God, represented by the Qur’an and Sale’s translation itself. The image’s sensitive approach towards Islam is captured in a further detail. The artist intentionally restrained from identifying the kneeling man as the Prophet Muhammad, instead incorporating a symbol indicative of Muhammad’s presence in the picture. The rose in the immediate foreground claims prominence not only due to its huge blossom but also because it seems to correspond with the believer’s direction of prayer. It is highly probable that the illustrator included the flower in order to symbolize the Prophet. The associations of Muhammad and the rose can be found in Muslim biographies of the Prophet, in hadith, as well as in works of art produced throughout the Islamic world.¹¹⁸ In Ottoman hilyeler—calligraphic descriptions of the external appearance of Muhammad—the rose is often evoked or employed directly to symbolize the Prophet.¹¹⁹ In some cases the name of the Prophet was even written into the blossom, as is the case with the hilye produced in the eighteenth century, preserved in the Sadberk Hanım Museum in Istanbul (fig. 24).¹²⁰ Thus, the diminutive image of a Muslim preparing for prayer not only demonstrates a newly sympathetic attitude towards Islam but also tries to describe the religion according to its own pictorial formulas.¹²¹ Although it seems visually to adhere to a pictorial strategy commonly found throughout the Ottoman Empire, the image still fails to provide an objective rendering of either the Prophet or of Islam. It instead offers a romanticized view of Islam which is characteristic of the nineteenth century. The Western imagination found in

118 Muhammad adored the rose as a symbol of the perfection of the cosmos. See Annemarie Schimmel, “Rose und Nachtigall,” Numen 5, no. 2 (1958), 105–107. Islamic sources not only recount Muhammad’s appraisal of the rose as a symbol of the divine composition of the cosmos, but also recount how roses sprouted wherever drops of Muhammad’s sweat fell to the earth during his mi’raj. The Hapsburgian Diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq included this anecdote in the first letter sent from the Ottoman court (dated September 1, 1555). His letters became available to a wide audience when they appeared in print in 1581 in Antwerp. See Ogier G. de Busbecq, The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554–1562: Translated from the Latin of the Elzevir Edition of 1663, ed. and trans. Edward Seymour Forster (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2005), X, 28. 119 Hüseyin Gündüz emphasizes that the “[r]ose is the most preferred flower for hilye illuminations. Rose is the symbol of the Prophet. The Prophet’s sweat has the smell of Rose.” See Hüseyin Gündüz, Hat Sanatinda. Hilye-I Şerîfe Hz. Muhammed’in Özellikleri (Istanbul: Antik A. Ş. Kültür Yayınları, 2006), 91. 120 The names of the Caliphs, the successors of the Prophet as spiritual and political leaders, are written on the leaves of the flower. 121 Rippin describes the incorporation of a Muslim perspective in European Qur’an studies as a characteristic of the 20th century. In its reference to Islamic iconography, the print can be seen to herald this development. See Andrew Rippin, “Western Scholarship and the Qur’an,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an, ed. Jane Dammen MacAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 242.

138 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

Fig. 24: Untitled, Hilye, 18th century. Paint on Paper, Istanbul, Sadberk Hanım Museum, Inv.-no. 10602, Y. 8.

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 139

its visualizations of the “Islamic Orient” the opposite of its own industrialized and supposedly rational society, and projected onto it the idea of a timeless, primitive land characterized by leisure and sensual pleasure. Muhammad was simultaneously transfigured into a sincere and heroic person, who brought his people a natural and simple religion.¹²²

Conclusion One major aspect in the history of the Western perception of Islam is the continuous presence of popular interest in all of its aspects. The first widespread diffusion of material concerning Islam was made possible through the invention of the printing press. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the Reformation were two critical factors responsible for an increased interest in Islam and its founder. However, a less hostile popular image of the Prophet arose only with the ebbing of the menace of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the seventeenth century. Scholars of the Enlightenment aspired to the propagation of a more historically accurate understanding of the Prophet, although popular taste during the baroque and rococo period embraced an exoticized and fantastical image of Islam, of which Muhammad was merely the personification, and was even transformed into a theatrical character who appeared in several plays. The nineteenth century witnessed another transformation in the visualization of Muhammad. On the one hand, authors and artists seemed to propagate an image of Muhammad imbued with some authentic Islamic content which depicted Muhammad as a sincere religious reformer. Informed by nineteenth-century Romantic ideals, which emphasized a desire for nativeness and simplicity, the figure of Muhammad was heroicized as a sort of natural philosopher. Thus, Western European audiences were never simply passive receivers of the Prophet’s image but, through ever-changing taste and preferences, were inherently responsible for its public formulation. Given the frequency with which the representation of the Prophet Muhammad was altered—Nerreter is one of the few to reuse an older, existing portrait of Muhammad from another source, rather than commissioning a new image—it appears that every generation evidently felt the need to give a new face to the Prophet, and by reformulating his image, to reconfigure their relationship with Islam. Thus, the exam-

122 The first steps towards the characterisation of Islam as a simplified, and therefore logical, religion were already made in the eighteenth century in the works of Adrian Reland and Boulainvilliers. See Alain Grosrichard, The Sultan’s Court: European Fantasies of the East (London: Verso, 1998), 110. The characterization of Muhammad as a historical hero became popular due to a series of lectures given by Thomas Carlyle in London in 1840. See Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: Chapman and Hall, 1882). The second lecture in his series, delivered on May 8, 1840 was titled “The Hero as Prophet; Mahomet”.

140 

 Muhammad’s Multiple Faces

ination of this material enables a better understanding of Western ideas about Islam, but even more, the depictions of Muhammad can be read as mirrors of contemporary European society.¹²³ Particularly during the Reformation, but also in later religious, political and social disputes, the image of the Prophet Muhammad was continuously exploited by Western artists and authors as an emblematic figure of the “Other” employable for their very own objectives.¹²⁴ An important aspect of the imagery concerning the Prophet is that the interpretation of most of these images was highly dependent upon some type of text, whether inscriptions contained within the image or appended to them, or else upon a textual passage positioned adjacent to the image,¹²⁵ frequently taken from a translation of the Qur’an or else from a biography of his life. Indeed, images of Muhammad which are completely independent of text are rare in Christian art prior to the twentieth century. Thus, the relationship between the visual representation and the text is of particular importance, because the image of the Prophet is a product of the interplay between both media. In the case of the inscription “the false Prophet” which accompanies the fictitious portraits of Muhammad in the texts of Baudier, Nerreter and many others, the text was specifically employed to obviate a neutral or positive visual depiction of the Prophet by rendering it suspect, facilitating a decidedly negative interpretation.¹²⁶

123 Conklin Akbari reaches the same conclusion upon analyzing earlier Western European imaginations of the Prophet as Antichrist. She notes that “[t]he depiction of Islam and particularly Muhammad is in part dependent on historical developments such as the crusades and the later conflict with the Turks; but it also responds to internal events within Europe, such as heretical movements and religious debate within the church. The representation of Islam thus often serves to indicate the status of Christian community itself: commentary on the other is very frequently commentary on the self”. See Suzanne Conklin Akbari, “The Rhetoric of Antichrist in Western Lives of Muhammad,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 8, no. 3 (1997), 304. For Thierry Hentsch the Orient in general was used as to mirror the European self. See Thierry Hentsch, Imagining the Middle East, transl. Fred A. Reed (New York: Black Rose Books, 1992), 113. 124 On the use of Islamic content in propaganda produced by both Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation, see Michael J. Heath, “Islamic Themes in Religious Polemic,” in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 50, no. 2 (1988), 291. For the subsequent instrumentalization of Islam in European religious conflicts between Christian orthodoxy and “Deists” throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions, 86 and 99. 125 Certainly, this observation concerns not only the images discussed in this article but pertains to all visual representations of the Prophet found by members of the research group. 126 The direct contrast of a visual portrait of Muhammad with his textual description also appears in translations of the Qur’an completed by Alexander Ross and David Friedrich Megerlin. See A Compleat History of the Turks, from their origin in the year 755 to the year 1718 […] To which are added, […] III. The life of their Prophet Mahomet. IV. The Alcoran, translated from the Arabic by the Sieur De Ryer, and now Enlish’d., ed. David Jones, 4 vol. (London: J. Darby, 1718–1719), and David F. Megerlin, Die türkische Bibel, oder des Korans allererste teutsche Übersetzung aus der arabischen Urschrift selbst verfertigt (Frankfurt a.M.: J. G. Garbe, 1772).

Printed Images of the Prophet in Western Europe 

 141

This “disclosure” of visual content as misleading was used not only to characterize Muhammad’s fraudulent qualities but also can be described as one of the main characteristics of the Prophet’s depictions. Before the nineteenth century, artists creating a face for Muhammad often referred to the topos of the false image or idol; Arrivabene’s image presented the vita of Muhammad as Christ-like throughout its composition, only to subvert this comparison in its final scene; Baudier’s book contrasted an illusionistic “portrait” of the Prophet to the Vera Icon; while Prideaux’s frontispiece presented Muhammad in an ambiguous state, so that his figure oscillated between living person, antique statue and abstract personification. These and other figures of the Prophet were deliberately designed in opposition to the “true” images of Christ and of the Christian saints. Images of the Prophet Muhammad rarely concealed their man-made origins; instead, they openly displayed their artificiality and, therefore provided a platform for self-referential discourse concerning the very nature of the visual arts.

Conclusion Avinoam Shalem This somewhat abbreviated history of the image of Muhammad illustrates the essential position that Muhammad claimed in the Western European imagination from the eighth until the nineteenth century. Although the scope of this book is remarkably broad—considering diverse epochs in the long history of the Latin West, including the period of the medieval Crusades, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment up to the era of Romanticism—it aims to extract from the plentiful literary and visual sources concerning Muhammad and Islam produced in the West only the most central and typical examples and to present them here as paradigmatic examples of the strategies employed in his visual representation. On the one hand, this research appears as part of the ongoing and, from a contemporary political and social point of view, highly-supported field of academic inquiry that focuses and analyzes the process of the making of the “Other”. In fact, as demonstrated in this book, as soon as Christianity was confronted with Islam, the figure of Muhammad became the major focus of any religious debate or discussion, and his biography was quickly instrumentalized for the condemnation, refutation, segregation or even entrenchment of Islam in the West. It seems then that a similitude between an abstract concept of Islam and the image of Muhammad had been established at a very early stage in the history of the West. Moreover, one can even argue that the image of Muhammad became a personification of the Muslim religion. In this sense, the image of Muhammad and the metamorphoses that it endured across time encapsulates the history of the making of the “Other”; that is, that the major or definitive “Other” of Christianity was Islam. And yet, it must be emphasized that this research sheds light only on the history of the European imagination of Islam rather than on the entire history of Islam and of its Prophet per se. Thus, this book deals with the history of the European perception of Islam and Muhammad, and in so doing, enters into the realm of translated histories, in which the object of observation is somehow lost and is replaced by a constructed image in the mind of its beholder. The contents of this book, namely the paradigmatic visual examples discussed throughout, mirror the varied visions of Muhammad in contemporary European society, and these examples are reflective of Europe’s selfperception rather than of Muhammad and Islam itself. This book thus reveals the process of constructing images of the self through the formation and manipulation of one’s imagined “Other”. No wonder then that the image of Muhammad was characterized as Antichrist, an imposter, a false Prophet, lunatic and a lecher in specific moments of European history. It should be noted, however, that a specific portion of Europe has been omitted from the present discussion. This is the area mainly consisting of Middle and

144 

 Conclusion

Eastern Europe, territories which largely formed part of Byzantium in medieval times and were subsequently part of the Ottoman Empire.¹ The abbreviated character of the book is both a strength as well as weakness. The book was specifically designed to serve as a handbook for scholars and students, which would provide them with a rapid summary of the most important milestones in the visual history of Muhammad in Europe, offering an easily accessed overview of a complex historical phenomenon. However, much visual material has been left aside. The numerous depictions of Muhammad in Europe which could not be included here fill various gaps and gray areas located in between the chosen illustrations of this book. Of course, the complete visual material provides a much more differentiated picture, one which only enhances the inherent multiplicity of imagery of Muhammad.² Indeed, the multiple methods of representing Muhammad could underscore a particular attitude towards the image of Muhammad in Europe. It might suggest that different motivations, intentions and ideas coexisted throughout history, forming a variety of “faces” of Muhammad, and therefore that no overall ideology existed. For this reason, it should be kept in mind that the images in this book, archetypical and exemplary as they may be in terms of a specific region or moment in history, are only part of a larger panorama. For example, our decision to organize the material in a chronological order reflects didactic motivations. It is in no way intended to imply that the European history of the development of imagery of Muhammad followed a linear evolution, let alone a constructive progression. In fact, each image that was chosen to be illustrated is visually and ideologically representative of a specific location in an exact historical or cultural moment or serves as a visual model of a specific literary interpretation. Once again, the pictures must be considered in terms of their

1 The visualization of Muhammad in Byzantium is still terra incognita, and hardly any images of the Prophet in Byzantine visual culture have been found. Yet traditions tell of the existence of his image in the treasury of the Byzantine imperial court. For a discussion of this tradition see mainly Oleg Grabar and Mika Natif, “The Story of Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad,” Studia Islamica 96 (2003), 19–38; Oleg Grabar, “Les portraits du Prophète Mahomet à Byzance et ailleurs,” Persée 146, no. 4 (2002), 1431–1445; and idem, “Seeing and Believing. The Image of The Prophet in Islam: The Real Story,” The New Republic, Nov. no. 4 (2009), 33–37. The depictions of Muhammad in the Ottoman provinces of Eastern Europe should be discussed as part of his visualization throughout the Islamic world. As mentioned in the introduction to this book, part of this subject was discussed in the conference Crossing Boundaries, Creating Images: In Search of the Prophet Muhammad in Literary and Visual Traditions (Florence 2009) which will be published by Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem as the proceedings of the conference. See also Christiane Gruber, “Realabsenz: Gottesbilder in der Islamischen Kunst zwischen 1300 und 1600,” Das Bild Gottes in Judentum, Christentum und Islam: Vom Alten Testament bis zum Karikaturenstreit, ed. Eckhard Leuschner and Mark R. Hesslinger (Petersberg: Imhof, 2009), 153–179. 2 These multiple images are gathered and discussed in the project of “Facing Muhammad” – a corpus of images of Muhammad in the West. This project is planned as a digital database and is being processed at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz.

Conclusion 

 145

inherent complexity. Their often multilayered compositions suggest different interpretations of the images of the Prophet and reflect continuously polyvalent or, at least ambivalent, visions of Islam.³ At the same time, each of these illustrations presents a shift in the aesthetics governing the figure of Muhammad. Thus, the reader of this book travels between distinct islands marking specific moments requiring the need for visual change in the archipelago of the Western rendition of the prophet Muhammad. The next fundamental insight that emerges from this study concerns the particular relationship between text and image. The majority of the illustrations of Muhammad in the West appear in a literary context, mostly in translated Qur’ans or in descriptions of his life. These are images of Muhammad that illustrate medieval manuscripts and printed books.⁴ In fact, even the monumental depictions of Muhammad, such as the frescoes in the Camposanto in Pisa and in the Bolognini chapel in San Petronio in Bologna, also discussed in this book, are indirectly bound to text; they either allude to Dante’s Divina Commedia or to the broader category of eschatological writings which form an essential part of Christian belief. Thus, the relationship between images of Muhammad and text(s) is of particular importance. Indeed, it appears as if an image of Muhammad in the West could not have functioned as a self-sufficient instrument for the transmission of knowledge of the Prophet, but instead was usually dependent on an accompanying and explanatory text. It has been shown in Saviello’s chapter that it was the text which negated any possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the visual image, provocatively suggesting that a represented image is less specific and strict concerning its message than is the written word. In several cases, when an image could be misunderstood, the text next to the image then directed the beholder

3 The image of the Prophet and the Qur’an had never been just one-sided, neither when it seen from an Christological point of view, nor from a historical perspective nor when it was rendered in a romantic and naïve style. Frederick Quinn, The Sum of All Heresies. The Image of Islam in Western Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 24: “No single ‘Islam’ ever was known by all Christians and no single transmission line emerged through which an image of Islam was passed from century to century.” An ambiguous relation to Islam can also be perceived in the western readings of the Qur’an. Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Quran in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 186: For Burman the “intricate interaction between polemical and philological Qur’an reading is central to understanding how Islam’s holy book was read in Latin Christendom.” This suggests that Westerners engaged in Islam in at least two different, contemporarily existing ways and modes of perception. 4 It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss another literary mode that involves the production of single-leaf prints, which were usually produced during the Reformation and had a propagandistic character. In these pamphlets the image of Muhammad is depicted next to a short ideological text. It should be noted, however, that these pamphlets are the product of a European confessional conflict rather than a discourse about the Muslim religion. For a good example of pamphlets as such, see Wolfgang Harms, ed., Illustrierte Flugblätter aus den Jahrhunderten der Reformation und der Glaubenskämpfe, Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Coburg 1983, cat. no. 118.

146 

 Conclusion

to the desired interpretation. To some extent this notion seems to suggest that the text held a sort of power over the image. Thus, an apparent dichotomy appears between text and image, in which the text claims to hold “the truth,” characterizing the image in question as a false and deceptive entity. But, it should be emphasized that an overt contrast between text and image was, in many instances, deliberately constructed in order to activate the beholder of the book to fully engage with the image and to reinforce this division in his mind. In many instances, the beholder was made aware of these contradictory forces during his experience in front of the book through adjacent text. Although first attracted to a seemingly positive, affirmative visual image of Muhammad, the beholder could then be revolted by him after discovering his true nature as described in the associated text, immunizing him against the alluring image of Muhammad and the supposedly fraudulent nature of Islam. Therefore, the interplay between text and image is highly important to the pictorialisation of the Prophet Muhammad, even if, one tends to think that text has an upper hand over images. Another major aspect in the history of the Western perception of Islam is the constant growth of popular interest in the image of the Prophet and the activation of particular media in order to foster the publicity of constructed images of him. The craving for popularization seems to appear in the High Middle Ages, especially in the age of the Crusades to the Holy Land. The appearance of a new literary genre, termed by Di Cesare in the first chapter of this book as the “god Muhammad,” attests to this popular notion that aims at justifying the Crusades and mobilizing crusaders to Jerusalem. Moreover, this new interest gave birth to Muhammad’s new image as an idol. The new iconographic type of the Prophet Muhammad that appears with Dante’s Divina Commedia marks a further innovative phase in the history of Muhammad’s rendition in the West. Dante likely drew upon Ibn ‘Arabi’s mystical writings, but it is plausible that the popular literary traditions of the Prophet’s ascension—his mi’raj— inspired Dante’s work, perhaps via its translation into Latin, entitled the Liber Scale Machometi (The Book of Muhammad’s Ladder). In any case, it was again constant interest at the popular level which propelled the making of this new depiction of the Prophet. It is interesting to observe that, whereas the mi’raj celebrates Muhammad’s ascension, Dante’s Divina Commedia places Muhammad in hell. Whereas previously constructed images emphasized his supposedly pseudo-historical, legendary or idolatrous nature, images of Muhammad inspired by Dante’s text replace these abstractions with an image of Muhammad featuring a decidedly corporeal presence, emphasized through his repeated evisceration upon every rotation of the ninth bolgia. Muhammad’s appearance on the monumental fresco of Giovanni da Modena in Bologna further accentuates how his image conquered public space in Italy in the fifteenth century. The first widespread diffusion and reproduction of the image of Muhammad was made possible, however, due to the invention of the printing press. It is no secret that the great interest in Muhammad and in Islam in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe was strongly rooted in the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, especially

Conclusion 

 147

towards the Latin West, and, strange as it might seem, in the struggle for reformation within the Catholic Church. A revolutionary development in the printed image of the Prophet appears in Michel Baudier’s Histoire générale de la religion des Turcs (General History of the Religion of the Turks) dated 1625. Whereas the image of Muhammad was imbued with an unmistakable corporeality in Dante’s Divina Commedia, this illustration marks the first moment that the Prophet was given a “face” in the manner of an individualized “portrait”. It is tempting to suggest that perhaps it was the mass reproduction and duplication of his image in the age of the printing press which instigated the creation of Muhammad’s portrait. The ambivalent, and in some cases even deceitful, Vera Icon of the Prophet that circulated in printed translations of the Qur’an secures possible falsification and forgeries of his figure. And yet, besides the re-use and modifications of Muhammad’s portrait in the early modern era, as perhaps best illustrated in Nerreter’s German edition of the Qur’an in 1703, every generation felt the need to give a new face to the Prophet and to reformulate their position towards Islam within these pictures. Therefore, the examination of his image not only enables a better understanding of intercultural perceptions, but Muhammad’s portraits can at the same time be read as the reflection of the psyche of contemporary societies in the West.⁵ A further interesting moment in the history of Muhammad in Europe seems to happen mainly in the eighteenth century, where Muhammad appears in theatrical plays and performances. Although technically this “theatrical” image can be traced back to the first half of the seventeenth century, to a ballet performance at the royal court of King Louis XIII of France. The humorous and ironic approach to the figure of Muhammad on stage might hint at the possible emergence of a relatively conscious European approach to the reconstruction of the Prophet’s image and of a cognizant European mentality that examined itself in an enlightened, and perhaps even critical fashion. In short, the image of Muhammad has been exploited by Western artists and authors and was made compatible for their objectives as the “personification” of the West’s “Great Other”.⁶

5 Conklin Akbari comes to the same result analyzing the earlier Western imaginations of the Prophet as an Antichrist. Suzanne Conklin Akbari, “The Rhetoric of Antichrist in Western Lives of Muhammad,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 8, no. 3 1997, 297–307, here 304: “The depiction of Islam and particularly Muhammad is in part dependent on historical developments such as the crusades and the later conflict with the Turks; but it also responds to internal events within Europe, such as heretical movements and religious debate within the church. The representation of Islam thus often serves to indicate the status of Christian community itself: commentary on the other is very frequently commentary on the self.” More generally, Thierry Hentsch argues that the Orient was used as a mirror for the European’s self. See Thierry Hentsch, L’Orient imaginaire. La vision politique occidentale de l’Est méditerranéen (Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 1988). 6 On the usage of Islamic themes in the propaganda produced by both the Protestants and the orthodox Catholic Church in the struggle for Reformation, see Michael J. Heath, “Islamic Themes in Religious Polemic,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 50, no. 2 (1988), 289–316. For Islam’s later instrumentalization within the European religious conflicts between Christian orthodox and the

148 

 Conclusion

It is likely that the popularization of the Prophet in Europe contributed enormously to the making of Muhammad’s image. Moreover, it could be argued that the public was not merely a passive receiver of the popular image of the Prophet but rather an active participant which dictated the aesthetic parameters within which Muhammad’s image was shaped. The suggestions made in this book regarding changes in the education level of the audience interested in Muhammad, and the possible link between the various media involved and its particular audience, that is manuscripts and scholars, wood-cuts and monumental public painting and the upper class, and the printed book and the bourgeoisie, might even be applied to the present age of digital revolution and the presence of a global audience interconnected through Internet-based social networks, especially when considering the wide and rapid spread of the Danish caricatures of Muhammad.⁷ Short as this survey is, another insight stemming from this book is that the comparison of Muhammad to Christ was a pivotal strategy in the interpretation of Muhammad in Europe, and that this parallel was continuously inflicted on his representations. This is quite understandable because, from a Christian point of view, Muhammad was usually regarded as a heretic who tried to establish a perverted form of the Christian belief by propagating his own new religious law. Furthermore, several legendary stories and popular beliefs concerning the Prophet Muhammad circulating throughout the medieval world explicitly demonstrate that the making of the image of Muhammad aimed at establishing credibility by drawing upon Christian traditions concerning miracles and deeds associated with Christ. These are, for example, the legends surrounding the figure of Muhammad, such as his claim to be able to rise from the dead after three days, and to some extent the story of the hidden vessels of honey and milk. But even the story of the tamed dove might recall the conventional representation of the Holy Spirit descending onto the figure of Christ. Perhaps the best example to illustrate the process of characterizing Muhammad in terms of Christological details appears in the Gesta Tancredi discussed in Di Cesare’s chapter. The idol “Mahummet” housed in the Templum Domini in Jerusalem is defined as Antichrist and therefore as Muhammad only after negating its possible representation of Christ. In fact, the image of Muhammad as Antichrist is the best case in point to illustrate the construction of Muhammad in Europe as relating to the counter image of Christ. And, even in other cases, in which the Prophet appears as the cunning impostor, and is not necessarily identified as Antichrist, his figure is literarily and visually constructed upon and contrasted with the figure of Christ. Whereas Christ reveals his true image

“Deists” of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries, see David A. Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions: Comparative Religion in Seventh- and Eighteenth-century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 86–92; and Quinn, The Sum of All Heresies, 60. 7 See Jytte Klausen, The Cartoons that Shook the World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009).

Conclusion 

 149

through the Vera Icon, Muhammad was depicted as a figure associated with falsehood and fraud and, by inserting the mask as one of his attributes, his character was linked to the idea of the deceptive nature of the arts.⁸ Thus, the comparison between the two serves to neglect any familiarity between the two religions and to illustrate the danger that could arise from any attempt to draw analogies between them. At the same time, the construction of the images of Antichrist and Muhammad could also be regarded as a critical exploitation. The making of a contra-image to Christ is itself an act of self-reflection within the shaping and development of Christian belief. It would be therefore highly interesting to investigate how and when the contra-image of Christ, namely Muhammad, influenced the formation of the image of Christ. But this is another story.

8 The role of Muhammad as a figure of art and artifice is discussed in chapter three and will be further analyzed in the forthcoming publication of the doctoral dissertation by Alberto Saviello.

Selected Bibliography Almond, Philip C. Heretic and Hero: Muhammad and the Victorians. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1989. Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. San Francisco: Harper, 1992. Asín Palacios, Miguel. Dante e l’Islam: Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Comedia, trans. Roberto Rossi Testa and Younis Tawfik. Milan: Il Saggiatore, S.P.A., 2005. Bennett, Clinton. In Search of Muhammad. London: New York University Press, 1998. Bischoff, Bernhard. “Ein Leben Mohammeds (Adelphus?) (Zwölftes Jahrhundert).” In Anecdota novissima. Texte des vierten bis sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, edited by Bernhard Bischoff, 106–122. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1984. Bobzin, Hartmut. Der Koran im Zeitalter der Reformation. Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Arabistik und Islamkunde in Europa. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1995. Bobzin, Hartmut. Mohammed. Munich: Beck, 2000. Brafman, David. “Picart, Bernard, Hermes, and Muhammad (Not Necessarily in that Order).” In Bernard Picart and the First Global Vision of Religion, edited by Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Jacob Mijnhardt, 139–168. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2010. Burman, Thomas. Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Cahn, Walter B. “The ‘Portrait’ of Muhammad in the Toledan Collection.” In Reading Medieval Images. The Art Historian and the Object, edited by Elizabeth Sears and Thelma K. Thomas, 51–60. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Camille, Michael. The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Cantarino, Vicente. “Dante and Islam: History and Analysis of a Controversy.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 25 (2007): 37–55. Cerulli, Enrico. Il “Libro della scala” e la questione delle fonti arabo-spagnole delle Divina Commedia. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1949. Champion, Justin A. I. “Legislator, Impostors, and the Politic Origins of Religion: English Theories of Imposture from Stubbe to Toland.” In Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe: Studies on the ‘Traité des trois imposteurs’, edited by Silvia Berti, Francoise Charles-Daubert, and Richard H. Popkin, 333–356. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher, 1996. Conklin Akbari, Suzanne. Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient 1100–1450. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Conklin Akbari, Suzanne. “The Rhetoric of Antichrist in Western Lives of Muhammad.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 8.3 (1997): 297–307. Corti, Maria. “Dante and Islamic Culture.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 125 (2007): 57–75. Cottone, Margherita. “Das Islam-Bild zur Zeit der Aufklärung in Europa. Mohammed und muslimische Religion zwischen Voltaire und Lessing.” In Deutsche Kultur und Islam am Mittelmeer, Akten der Tagung, Palermo, 13.–15. November 2003, edited by Laura Auteri and Margherita Cottone, 193–214. Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag 2005. Curatola, Giovanni, ed. Dante e l’Islam: incontri di civiltà. Milan: Biblioteca di via Senato Edizioni, 2010. D’Alverny, Marie-Thérèse. “Deux traductions latines du Coran au Moyen Age.” Archives d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 16 (1947–48): 69–131. D’Alverny, Marie-Thérèse. “Pierre le Vénérable et la légende de Mahomet.” In À Cluny. Congrès scientifique, fêtes et cérémonies liturgiques en l’honneur des saints Abbés Odon et Odilon

152 

 Selected Bibliography

(Cluny, 9–10 Julliet 1949): travaux du Congrès: art, histoire, liturgie, 161–170. Dijon: Impr. Bernigaud & Privat, 1950. D’Ancona, Alessandro. La leggenda di Maometto in Occidente, edited by Andrea Borruso. Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1994. Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960. Daniel, Norman. Heroes and Saracens: An Interpretation of the chansons de geste. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984. De la Cruz Palma, Óscar. “Los Textos della llamada Collectio Toletana, fuente de informacion sobre el Islam.” The Journal of Medieval Latin 17 (2007): 413–434. Di Cesare, Michelina. “Pietro il Venerabile, Ka’b al-Ahbar e il Signum Ionae: una nuova interpretazione del “ritratto” di Muhammad nel Corpus Cluniacense.” In Per Gabriella. Studi in ricordo di Gabriella Braga, edited by Marco Palma and Cinzia Vismara, in press. Die Cesare, Michelina. “Appendix” to Maria Vittoria Fontana, “Muhammad and Khadija in an Illustration of a 14th century manuscript of the Satirica ystoria by Paulinus Venetus (ms. Vat. Lat. 1960),” in Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World: Trade, Gift Exchange and Artistic Transfer, ed. Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli and Gerhard Wolf (Venice: Marsilio, 2010), 205–216. Di Cesare, Michelina. The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. Dold, Bernard E. Carlyle, Goethe and Muhammad. Messina: EDAS, 1984. Engels, Peter. “Das Bild des Propheten Mohammed in abendländischen Schriften des Mittelalters.” In Kreuzzüge. Kein Krieg ist heilig, edited by Hans-Jürgen Kotzur, 249–263. Mainz am Rhein: Zabern, 2004. Esposito Frank, Maria. “Dante’s Muhammad: Parallels between Islam and Arianism.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 125 (2007): 185–206. Flori, Jean. “La caricature de l’Islam dans l’Occident médiéval. Origine et signification de quelques stéréotypes concernant l’Islam.” Aevum. Rassegna di scienze storiche, linguistiche e filologiche 66.2 (1992), 245–256. González Muñoz, Fernando. “Liber Nycholay : La leyenda de Mahoma y el cardenal Nicolás.” Al-Qantara 25 (2004): 5–43. Grabar, Oleg. “Les portraits du Prophète Mahomet à Byzance et ailleurs.” Persée 146.4 (2002): 1431–1445. Grabar, Oleg and Mika M. Natif. “The Story of Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad.” Studia Islamica 96 (2003): 19–38. Grady, Frank. “Machomete and Mandeville’s Travels.” In Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam, edited by John V. Tolan, 271–288. New York: Routledge, 2000. Grosrichard, Alain. The Sultan’s Court: European Fantasies of the East. London: Verso 1998. Hamilton, Alastair. “Adrianus Reland (1676–1718). Outstanding Orientalist.” In Zes keer zestig. 360 jaar universitaire geschiedenis in zes biografieën, edited by Hervé Jamin, 23–31. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht, 1996. Hamilton, Alastair and Francis Richard. André du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-century France. Oxford: Arcadian Library in association with Oxford University Press, 2004. Hentsch, Thierry. L’Orient imaginaire. La vision politique occidentale de l’Est méditerranéen. Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 1988. Holt, Peter M. “The Treatment of Arab History by Prideaux, Ockley and Sale.” In Historians of the Middle East, edited by Bernard Lewis and Peter M. Holt, 290–302. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Selected Bibliography 

 153

Hotz, Stephan. Mohammed und seine Lehre in der Darstellung abendländischer Autoren vom späten 11. bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts. Aspekte, Quellen und Tendenzen in Kontinuität und Wandel. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002. Huygens, Robert B. C. “‘Otia de Machomete’: Gedicht von Walter von Compiègne.” Sacris erudiri 8 (1956): 287–328. Jansen, Hans. Mohammed: Eine Biographie. Munich: Beck, 2008. Khalidi, Tarif. Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet in Islam Across the Centuries. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Kidd, Thomas S. ““Is it Worse to Follow Mahomet than the Devil?” Early American Uses of Islam.” Church History 72.4 (2003): 766–790. Kritzeck, James. Peter the Venerable and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. Leder, Stefan. “Die Botschaft Mahomets und sein Wirken in der Vorstellung Goethes.” Oriens 36 (2001): 215–241. Lepage, Yvan G. and R. B. C. Huygens. Le roman de Mahomet de Alexandre du Pont (1258). Édition critique précédée d’une étude sur quelques aspects de la légende de Mahomet au Moyen Âge. Avec le texte des Otia de Machomete de Gautier de Compiègne. Paris: Klincksieck, 1977. Lewis, Suzanne. The Art of Matthew Paris in the “Chronica Majora.” Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. New York: Inner Traditions International, 1983. Luchitskaja, Svetlana. “The Image of Muhammad in Latin Chronography of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” Journal of Medieval History 26.2 (2000): 115–126. Mallette, Karla. “Muhammad in Hell.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 125 (2007): 207–224. Martínez Gázquez, José. “Translations of the Qur’an and Other Islamic Texts before Dante (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries).” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 125 (2007): 79–92. Martínez Gázquez, José. “Trois traductions médiévales latines du Coran. Pierre Le Vénérable – Robert de Ketton, Marc de Tolède et Jean de Segobia.” Revue des études latines 80 (2002): 223–236. Martínez Gázquez, José and Óscar de la Cruz Palma. “Las traducciones àrabe-latinas impulsadas por Pedro el Venerable.” In Las órdenes militares: realidad e imaginario, edited by Maria Dolores Burdeus, Elena Real, and Joan Verdegal, 285–296. Castelló de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I, 2000. Martínez, Salvador S. “La figura de Mahoma en Contra Perfidiam Mahometi, de Dionisio Cartujano.” In Espacio y tiempo en la percepción de la antigüedad tardía. Homenaje al profeso Antonino Gonzàlez Blanco, in maturitate aetatis ad prudentiam, edited by Elena Conde Guerri, Rafael González Fernández, and Alejandro Egea Vivancos, 627–645. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2006. Masson, Michel. “À propos de la forme du nom de Mahomet.” Bulletin de la SELEFA 2 (2003): 1–8. Meredith Jones, C. “The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste.” Speculum 17 (1942): 201–225. Mula, Stefano. “Muhammad and the Saints: The History of the Prophet in the ‘Golden Legend’.” Romance Philology 101.2 (2003): 175–188. Nagel, Tilman. Mohammed. Leben und Legende, Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008. Pellat Y. and Charles Pellat. “L’idée de Dieu chez les “Sarrasins” des chansons de geste.” Studia Islamica 13 (1965): 5–42.

154 

 Selected Bibliography

Percy, William. William Percy’s Mahomet and His Heaven: A Critical Edition. Edited by Matthew Dimmock. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Peter, Francis E. “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 23.3 (1991): 291–315. Peterson, Daniel C. Muhammad, Prophet of God. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publisher Co., 2007. Polzer, Joseph. “Aristotle, Mohammed and Nicholas V in Hell.” The Art Bulletin 46.4 (1964): 457–469. Potestà, Gian Luca and Marco Rizzi. L’Anticristo, vol. 1: Il nemico dei tempi finali. Testi dal II al IV secolo. Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Mondadori, 2005. Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale, trans. by Laurence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. Quinn, Frederick. The Sum of All Heresies: The Image of Islam in Western Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Reeves, Minou. Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making. Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 2000. Reichert, Folker. “Der eiserne Sarg des Propheten. Doppelte Grenzen im Islambild des Mittelalters.” In Grenze und Grenzüberschreitung im Mittelalter, edited by Ulrich Knefelkamp and Kristian Bosslemann-Cyran, 453–469. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007. Rodinson, Maxime. “The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam.” In The Legacy of Islam, edited by Joseph Schacht and Clifford E. Bosworth, 9–62. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. Roling, Bernd. “Humphrey Prideaux, Eric Fahlenius, Adrian Reland, Jacob Ehrharth und die Ehre des Propheten: Koranpolemik im Barock.” In Wahrnehmung des Islam zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung, edited by Dietrich Klein and Birte Platow, 61–76. Munich: Fink, 2008. Rotter, Ekkehart. Abendland und Sarazenen. Das okzidentale Araberbild und seine Entstehung im Frühmittelalter. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986. Rotter, Ekkehart. “Embricho von Mainz und das Mohammed-Bild seiner Zeit.” In Auslandsbeziehungen unter den salischen Kaisern. Geistige Auseinandersetzung und Politik, edited by Franz Staab, 69–127. Speyer: Verlag der Pfälzischen Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften in Speyer, 1994. Sahas, Daniel J. John of Damascus on Islam: The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’. Leiden: Brill, 1972. Saunders, J. J. “Mohammed in Europe. A Note on Western Interpretations of the Life of the Prophet.” Quarterly Journal of the Historical Association 39 (1954): 14–25. Saviello, Alberto and Avinoam Shalem. “Der Betrachter ist im Bild – Visualisierungen des Islam im europäischen Buchdruck (17.–18. Jahrhundert).” In Götterbilder und Götzendiener. Europas Blick auf fremde Religionen, edited by Maria Effinger, Cornelia Logemann and Ulrich Pfisterer, 69-79. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011. Saviello, Alberto. Imaginationen des Islam. Bildliche Darstellungen des Propheten Mohammed im westeuropäischen Buchdruck bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcomming) Schoeler, Gregor. The Biography of Muhammed: Nature and Authenticity. New York, Routledge, 2011. Schöller, Marco. Mohammed. Leben, Werk, Wirkung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008. Seitz, Annette. “Darstellungen Muhammads und seiner Glaubenslehre in lateinischen Weltchroniken.” In Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft, edited by Michael Borgolte, 116–131. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2008. Setton, Kenneth M. Western Hostility to Islam and Prophecies of Turkish Doom. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1992. Smith, Jane. “French Christian Narratives Concerning Muhammad and the Religion of Islam from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 7.1 (1996): 47–61. Strickland, Debra Higgs. Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Selected Bibliography 

 155

Tolan, John V. “Anti-Hagiography: Embrico of Mainz’s Vita Mahumeti.” Journal of Medieval History 22 (1996): 25–41. Tolan, John V. Saracens. Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Wasilewski, Janna C. “The ‘Life of Muhammad’ in Eulogius of Cόrdoba: Some Evidence for the Transmission of Greek Polemic to the Latin West.” Early Medieval Studies 16 (2008): 333–353. Werner, Edeltraud. Die Jenseitsreise Mohammeds. Liber scale Machometi: Kitāb al-mi’rāj. Hildesheim: Olms, 2007. Wolf, Kenneth B. Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Wolf, Kenneth B. “The Earliest Latin Lives of Muhammad.” In Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands. Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, 89–101. Toronto: PIMS, 1990. Wolf, Kenneth B. “Muhammad as Antichrist in Ninth-Century Córdoba.” In Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change, edited by Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English, 3–19. Notre-Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000.

Picture Credits Reproduced by permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: Fig. 1, 4, 5, 8; Reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: Fig. 2; Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, Windsor: Fig. 3; Reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena: Fig. 7; Reproduced by permission of I’Opera della Primaziale Pisana: Fig. 9; Reproduced by permission of MiBAC-Archivio Fotografico Soprintendenza BSAE Bologna: Fig. 10; Reproduced by permission of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.: Fig. 11. Photograph courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München: Fig. 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21; Photograph of the author: Fig. 14, 23; Photograph courtesy of the Universitäts- und Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha: Fig. 15; Photograph courtesy of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow: Fig. 17; Photograph courtesy of the New York Public Library: Fig. 22.

Index of Proper Names, Terms, and Places A Abraham of Toledo 41 Abu Bakr 63 Abu Talib 63 Acta Mechmeti I. Saracenorum Principis 108–111, 129, fig. 15 Adolf van der Laan 125, 127–128, fig. 20 Akroinon 9 Alcorano di Macometto v. Arrivabene, Andrea Alexander V 67 Alexandre du Pont – Le Roman de Mahomet 20 Alfonso X of Castile 41 Ali 35, 47, 49, 51, 63, 85 Alighieri, Jacopo 37 Amina 99 Amsterdam 117, 125 Anna 98 Anonymus of 1130 26 Antichrist 3, 10, 12, 19, 25, 27–29, 57, 62, 76–77, 89, 92, 96, 98, 103–104, 106, 110, 113, 121, 143, 148–149 Antioch 27, 30 Apollin 29 Apollo 28 Arabia 136 Arabs 9, 13 Aristotle 36, 43 Arius 59, 67, 77–78, 81 Arlequin Mahomet v. Lesage, Alain-René Arrivabene, Andrea – Alcorano di Macometto 76, 93–107, 110, 141, fig. 13 Ars poetica 4 Asín Palacios, Miguel – Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Comedia 38, 40 Averroës 60, 62 Avignon 67 B Bahira 63, 102 Bahram Mirza 73 Bal‘ami 71, 73 Balaam 100 baraka 84

Baratron 29 Bartolomeo Nerucci da San Gimignano 63 Basel 104–105 Basra 129 Baudier, Michel – Histoire général de la relgion des Turcs 111, 113, 115, 117–119, 122, 140–141, 147, fig. 16 Benedict XIII 67–68 Bensley, Robert 133, fig. 22 Bertran de Born 36, 47, 59–60 Bibliander, Theodor 104–106 al-Biruni – al-Athar al Baqiya 73 Bisogni, Fabio 62 Boccaccio, Giovanni – De casibus virorum illustrium 22–24, 44, fig. 4 Bohemond of Taranto 27 Bologna 49, 64, 67–68, 146 – San Petronio, Bolognini Chapel 3, 33, 64, 145–146, fig. 10 Bolognini, Bartolomeo 64 Bonaventure da Siena 42 Boulainvilliers, Henri de – La vie de Mahomed  121 Buffalmacco, Buonamico 3, 33, 46, 55–57, 60–61, 63, 66–68, 86, fig. 6, 9 Byzantium 108, 110, 144 C Cavalca, Domenico 63 Cerulli, Enrico 41 Chanson d’Antioche 30, fig. 5 Chansons de geste 25, 29–30, 129, 131 Charles Martel 9 Christ 6, 16, 25, 28, 57, 77–79, 97, 99, 101–103, 113, 115, 125, 141, 148–149 Chronica Maiora v. Matthew Paris Clement V 60 Cluniac corpus 6–7 Cluny 7 Compendium Veteris Testamenti v. Peter of Poitiers Contra Legem Saracentorum v. Riccoldo of Monte Croce Córdoba 13

158 

 Index of Proper Names, Terms, and Places

Cossa, Baldassare 67 cow 21, 127 D Dante – Divina Commedia 3, 33–38, 40–47, 49, 51, 53–55, 60, 68–69, 73, 75–77, 81–82, 85–86, 101, 145–147, fig. 7, 8 De casibus virorum illustrium v. Boccaccio, Giovanni De generatione Machumet et nutritura eius 4, 6, 75, 97, fig. 1 Divina Commedia v. Dante Duèze, Jacques 61 Dust Muhammad 73

Giotto 79 Giovanni da Modena 33, 64, 67–68, 86, 146, fig. 10 Giovanni di Michele 68 Giovanni XXII 60–61 Giovanni XXIII 67–68 Giovanno da Modena 33, 64, 67–68, 86, 146 Giuniforto delli Bargigi 51 Giunta, Lucantonio 95, 103, fig. 14 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von – West-Östlicher Diwan 121 Gregory the Great 110 Gregory XII 67–68 Guido da Pisa 46, 63

E Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist 79 Embrico of Mainz – Vita Mahumeti 20 Epiphanius of Salamis – Panarion 78 Escatalogía musulmana en la Divina Comedia v. Asín Palacios, Miguel eulogia 84 Eulogius of Córdoba 13, 77 – Istoria de Mahomet 13 – Liber Apologeticus Martyrum 13

H hadith 39–40, 69, 137 Halima 71, 75–76, 99 Henry II 36 Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes lawe called Alcaron v. Worde, Wynkyn de Herman of Dalmatia 4 Hilye 137, fig. 24 Historia ecclesiastica v. Socrates Scholasticus Histoire général de la relgion des Turcs v. Baudier, Michel Historia Scholastica v. Petrus Comestor Horace 4

F Florence 45 – Santa Maria Novella, Strozzi di Mantova Chapel 53–54 Foire de Saint Laurent 129 Francesco di Buti 63 Francesco di Ser Nardo da Barberino 45 Frederick I of Austria 61 Freiburg im Breisgau – Münster 78 Fretellus 26

I Iacopo della Lana 63 Ibn ‘Arabi 38, 40, 146 Ibn Ishaq – Sirat al-Nabi 39, 63 Ibn Said 63 Innominatus VI 26 Isaiah 99 Ishmaelites 9 Istanbul 70, 137 Istoria de Mahomet v. Eulogius of Córdoba 13

G Gabriel, archangel 12–13, 42, 69, 73, 100–101 Gaius Cassius Longinus 80–81 Gautier of Compiègne – Otia de Machometo 20 George of Hungary 106–107 Gerard of Cremona 43 Gesta Tancredi v. Raoul de Caen

J Jami‘ al-Tawarikh v. Rashid al-Din Jerusalem 25–26, 29, 39, 104, 146 – Jewish Temple 25 – Templum Domini 26–27, 148 John of Damascus 77 John of Jandun 62 John of Würzburg 26

Index of Proper Names, Terms, and Places 

Jonah 6 Joseph 13 Jouvencel 29 Judas 78–81 K Ka‘b al-Ahbar 6–7 Khadija 12, 117 Koran: commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed v. Sale, George L L’Alcoran de Mahomet v. Ryer, André du La vie de Mahomed v. Boulainvilliers, Henri de La vie de Mahomet v. Prideaux, Humphrey Landino, Cristoforo 37 Latini, Brunetto 42 Laurent de Premierfait 22–24, fig. 23 Le fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète v. Voltaire Le Roman de Mahomet v. Alexandre du Pont Leo III, the Isaurian 9 Leo the Wise 110 Lesage, Alain-René – Arlequin Mahomet 129, 131, fig. 21 Lettres persanes v. Montesquieu Leyre 13 Liber Apologeticus Martyrum v. Eulogius of Córdoba Liber legis Saracenorum quem Alcoran vocant v. Robert of Ketton Liber Scale Machometi 41–43, 74, 86, 146 Lille 131 Louis XIII 128, 147 Lucifer 67, 80–81 Ludwig IV of Bavaria 60–62 Luther, Martin 105 M Mandeville, John – The travels of Sir John Mandeville 90, 92 Mandylion 113, fig. 17 Maramauro, Guglielmo 63 Marcus Junius Brutus 80 Margot 29 Mark of Toledo 74 Mars 28 Marsilio of Padua 62 Mary 13, 79, 97–98

 159

Matthew Paris – Chronica Maiora 14–19, fig. 2 Mawsil (Mosul) 71 Mecca 6, 39, 69, 136 –  Zamzam well 69 Mehmet III 108 Memmi, Lippo 60 Messiah 6, 19 Mi‘raj 3, 10, 33, 38–42, 69–70, 73, 75, 86, 146 Milan 51, 61, 64 Montesquieu – Lettres persanes 131 Moses 70, 113, 127 Muhammad –  hidden vessel 21–22, 148 – idol of 25, 27–29, 103, 121, 129, 148 – tamed bull of 21–22, 24 – tamed dove of 21, 24, 110, 121, 129, 148 N Nardo di Cione 53–54 Nero 29 Nerreter, David – Neu-eröffnete Mahometanische Moschea 121–122, 124, 139–140, 147, fig. 19 Nestorius 63, 102 Niccolò V 61–62, 67–68 O Otia de Machometo v. Gautier of Compiègne Ottoman Empire 3, 90, 105–108, 110–111, 121, 125, 129, 137, 139, 144, 146 P Padua – Arena Chapel 79 Pamplona 13 Panarion v. Epiphanius of Salamis Paul, Saint 95, 103 Peter of Poitiers – Compendium Veteris Testamenti 17–18, Fig. 3 Peter of Toledo 4 Peter the Venerable 6, 11, 74–75, 77, 105 – Summa brevis 4 – Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum 4 Petrach 44 Petrus Comestor – Historia Scholastica 78

160 

 Index of Proper Names, Terms, and Places

Pietro Telesphoro de Pomis 118 Phillip V 61 Pisa – Camposanto 3, 33, 56, 60, 66–68, 145, fig. 9 – Santa Caterina 60 Poitiers 9 Poilly, François de fig. 21 Prideaux, Humphrey – La vie de Mahomet 117–121, 124–125, 129, 133, 141, fig. 18 Pseudo-Methodius – Apocalypse 92 R Raimondi, Bartolomeo 64 Raoul de Caen – Gesta Tancredi 27–28, 148 Rashid al-Din – Jami‘ al-Tawarikh 73 Reims – Cathedral Notre-Dame 79 Riccoldo of Monte Croce – Contra Legem Saracentorum 75, 77 Robert of Ketton 4, 74 – Liber legis Saracenorum quem Alcoran vocant 77 Rome 61, 67 Ryer, André du – L’Alcoran de Mahomet 125, 127, fig. 20 S Sale, George – Koran: commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed 133, 135–137, fig. 23 Saltarelli, Simon 61 Sansadoine 30 Saracens 4, 9, 25, 29–30, 34, 75, 77, 104, 108, 131 Savafid Empire 129 Scrovegni, Enrico 79 Selim I 90 Sendino, José Muñoz 41 Sergius 63, 102 Shah Tahmasp 73 Shaqq al-Sadr 33, 69–71, 73, 75–77, 86 Sirat al-Nabi v. Ibn Ishaq Socrates Scholasticus – Historia ecclesiastica 77

Spinola, Lucano 46 St. Albans 14, 19 Strasbourg – Cathedral Notre-Dame 79 Summa brevis v. Peter the Venerable Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum v. Peter the Venerable Syria 11, 63, 102 T al-Tabari – Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk 71, 75, fig. 11 Tancredi 27–29 Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk v. al-Tabari The travels of Sir John Mandeville v. Mandeville, John 90, 92 Thomas, Saint 60 Tervagant 29 Toledo 7, 42, 105 V Venetian Republic 106–107 Venice 76, 93, 95 Vera Icon 113, 115, 141, 147, 149 Vienna 125 Villani, Giovanni 44 Virgil 34, 42, 47, 49, 51, 60, 77 Virgillio, Giovanni del 44 Visconti, Federico 56 Visconti, Filippo Maria 51 Vita Mahumeti v. Embrico of Mainz Voltaire –  Le fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète 128, 131, 133, fig. 22 Vulgate 6 W West-Östlicher Diwan v. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Worde, Wynkyn de – Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes lawe called Alcaron 89–90, fig. 12 Z Zacharias 13